Skeet, which apparently comes from Old Icelandic, is a word you’re likely to hear frequently in the Isle of Man. It’s means gossip, more or less. People will ask you, “Got any skeet (at you)?” and will try to find out all about who you’ve seen, where they were and what they were doing, who they were with, and so on. The holder of any juicy skeet will try and keep as much of it to themselves for as long as they can to build up the suspense.
You can also have a skeet (look) at something, for example if you’ve brought something new people will ask for a skeet at it, and having a skeet at the neighbours from behind your net curtains is a common practice.
In Manx the word skeet means sneak or news, and jollys-skeet is a voyeur.
Other meanings of skeet include:
- clay targets used in trapshooting - known as clay pigeons in the UK
- a poker hand consisting of a 9, a 5, a 2, and two other cards lower than 9.
- loud, disruptive and poorly educated person of low social status (in Newfoundland slang)
- to squirt
This week I’ve been transcribing the conversations and interviews I recorded while in the Isle of Man. So far I’ve done about an hour’s worth of transcription, which comes out as just over ten thousand words. I have another four hours or so of recordings, and hope to finish transcribing them this week. Then I’ll start writing up my findings. I probably have too much information, but that’s better than too little.
One thing that’s struck me is how disjointed conversations can appear when you write them down. The are loads of repetitions, utterances are often loosely connected with conjunctions like and, so, but or because, they go off on tangents, and often tail off without … Many utterances only make sense in context, and lots of bits can be omitted if the people involved share some common knowledge. There’s also no shortage of interruptions and interjections, and people often finish off one another’s sentences, especially if they know each other well. When you’re speaking you don’t necessarily notice this as much, unless you’re particularly looking out for it.
While it is possible to talk in coherent, well-formed sentences without notes or a script, that doesn’t seem to be how most people talk.
Today while exploring Douglas Head, an rocky headland just south of Douglas, I came across a sign that explained that the area was developed for ramblage and recreation, and other things, in the 1870s. The word ramblage attracted my attention as I hadn’t seen it before. Maybe it’s an old version of rambling. Have you heard it before?
There are quite a few words describe the action of moving along on foot, including walk, ramble, amble, hike, ambulate, march, wander, shuffle, perambulate, plod, run, saunter, stride, stroll, trudge and tramp. I’ve read that in some languages, such as Spanish and French, verbs of motion don’t usually indicate the manner of motion. Is this true of other languages?
I spoke quite a lot of Manx yesterday and heard even more at a regular get-together of Manx speakers which happens on Tuesday afternoons in Douglas. About nine or ten people turned up and we spoke in Manx for an hour or so. I occasionally lapsed into English, Welsh or Irish when I couldn’t think of how to say things in Manx, but the others all stuck to Manx and were speaking it fluently. This was the first time I’d heard so many people speaking Manx so well, and I understood a lot of what they said, and managed to work out the meanings of some unfamiliar words from the context.
When I chat with people who are fluent in a language I’m learning my level of language tends to improve. This is partly because I can adapt the things they say for my own purposes, and also because I feel the need to speak the language as well as possible. When I speak to non-fluent learners in languages I know well I try to adjust and simplify what I say so they can understand me. This is a useful exercise because it forces you to explain things simply and clearly and to practise alternative ways of saying things.
Can decipher this piece of writing or identify the language in which it’s written?
The person who sent in the image thinks the rug is appears on probably comes from Pakistan, and that the writing might be in Persian, Punjabi, Pashto or Urdu.
It rained heavily on and off most of yesterday and I overheard someone on the bus commenting that it was a “duvet day”. I don’t remember hearing this expression before, but from the context I thought she meant that because the weather was so unpleasant, she would prefer to spend the day under her duvet rather than going to work.
According to Wikipedia, a duvet day is a day off from work you take when you’re not sick and don’t have other reasons for staying at home, but just feel like a break. Some people apparently have the right to such days in their contracts. The Phrase Finder adds that this practice dates back to the 1960s and that the phrase first appeared in print in 1996.
Does this concept exist in your country? Are you allowed to take duvet days?
I’m on the Isle of Man at the moment doing some research for my dissertation on the revival of the Manx (Gaelic) language. I’m staying in Douglas (Doolish), the island’s capital, and plan to explore other parts of the island - it’s partly a holiday for me as well as a way to collect data.
One of the things I’m investigating is the use of Manx in public. On the ferry from Liverpool they used the Manx for good morning, moghrey mie, a few times in announcements, though that was the only Manx I heard yesterday. I also found some leaflets with collections of useful Manx phrases at the ferry terminal, including some with translations in French, German and Spanish.
When exploring Douglas today I noticed quite a few English/Manx bilingual street signs, and that most government departments, and some shops and other businesses have English and Manx names. So the public visibility of the language is quite high, but you only hear it spoken at certain times and in certain places, which is similar to the situation with Irish in Dublin. For example, today I sat in on a Manx conversation class that takes place every Tuesday lunchtime in a local pub. It was the first time I’d heard live Manx conversation, and somewhat to my surprise, I could understand almost everything they said, which is encouraging. My knowledge of Irish and Scottish Gaelic certainly helps.
Tomorrow I’ll be visiting the Manx medium primary school and talking to some of the teachers. I discovered today that most of the kids there only speak Manx in the school - outside school and at home the speak mainly or entirely in English, except in a few Manx-speaking families. I’ll find out more about this tomorrow.
