“Now lads – dinni ask him aboot the ingredients o the dip, it’ll gar ye boak.”

Translate:

boak, bock, bok: vomit.

“Now guys – don’t ask him about the ingredients of the dip, the answer will make you sick.”

Dip.

How strange some people are about food. They will eat chicken but will not eat rabbit.

Perhaps they see rabbits as cuddly pets rather than vermin that have an excellent life in the wild until they are brought humanely to an end by a bullet.

Compare that to the sad, brutal and short life that most chickens have to endure to meet the price we want to pay. And as to how they are killed, you can look that up yourself, I’ll spare you here.

When I was a child I lived with twelve chickens running wild in my gran’s garden that one by one went into the pot each and every Sunday. I was a witness to their swift dispatch.

My gran didn’t realise she was just supposed to look after them for my dad until he built his hen run.

They were all gone when he got round to come and collect them.

The Scottish Word: boak with its definition and its meaning illustrated and captioned with the word used in context in the Scots language and in English.

(This is a Scotstober 2024 Word.)

All of the Scotstober words illustrated for week one are available to scroll through on a single page here.