“He’s kent as quick draw McGraw cos he’s sae speedy tae whip the taws oer an oot frae its hidie doon the back o his goon.”
Translate:
taws: a leather punishment strap with thongs – once upon a time used in schools. However, nowadays most school discipline and indeed accidents are regarded as an opportunity for profit, by lawyers mostly.
“He is known as quick draw McGraw because he is so speedy to whip the leather punishment strap over and out from its place of concealement down the back of his gown.”
![[taws spelled out in the phonetic alphabet.]](/comics/phonetics/tawzph.gif){kind=small}
The Scottish Word: taws with its definition and its meaning illustrated and captioned with the word used in context in the Scots language and in English.
Our teacher would wash his belt in soapy water, then put on the top of the radiator, by the time it had dried, it was rock hard and straight. I’m sure u would get Jail for that now.
In the early 50’s, in Scotland. A teacher who could weild the strap with maximum effect ( pain ), was someone who could ‘ draw the taws ‘ . ‘ Oh that Dr Inglis can really draw the taws ‘. ( personal experience ). The ‘ draw ‘ described the action of swinging the strap from above the shoulder down onto the pupils hand.
I agree as one who begun that school journey on the taws wielding in 1955. I now realise as an ex lecturer how infuriating constant mindless sniggering is – as my friend ginger and I did – a lot, we made each other laugh, what can I say – and were belted appropriately. And in the drawing. The desk is the desk that we sat at. And there were still wood framed slates and hard graphite chalks still stacked in the school cupboards.