I came across some interesting Scots words in a TED talk today which I hadn’t heard before – stuckies, pleeps and doos.

What do you think they mean?

Clue: they’re types of bird.

In the talk the presenter, a native speaker of Scots, explains how he was told from his first day at school that many of the words he was using were wrong, and that it was the same story for many other children. They have to learn ‘proper’ English words. He talks about how Scots has been marginalised and replaced by a version of English spoken with a Scottish accent known as Attic or Scottish English. He explains how words in Scots have much richer associations in his brain than their English equivalents.

Here’s the talk:

How much can you understand?

Answers
A stuckie is a starling, a pleep is an oyster catcher, and a doo is a dove.