A defining moment for lovers of lingo

HEIDBANGERS, pay attention! Here's a book that will enrich your vocabulary, broaden your education and entertain. And for less than fiver forby. It's pure dead barrie, I can tell you.

You've got to read The Concise Dictionary of Scottish Words and Phrases, a tiny tome that will nestle snugly in your jacket pocket, compiled by an Edinburgh grandmother of five.

Like Betty Kirkpatrick says in her introduction: "Few people who are either native speakers of English or who have learnt English as a foreign or second language visit Scotland with any expectations of experiencing language difficulties.

"For the most part, their confidence is justified, provided at least they stick to the traditional tourist places and pursuits.

"The most difficulty they are likely to experience is with regional variations in accent pronunciation, and that variation is true of many countries. Discerning tourists may have some awareness of the fact the Highlands of Scotland have a language of their own, Gaelic, that is completely different from English.

"However, if they think about the language of lowland Scotland at all, they probably assume this is more or less English with, perhaps, a few dialectal differences."

Wrong! With her latest publication, Betty helps put this misapprehension by unsuspecting visitors to right. She is a true wordsmith by profession. She is by no means one of those professional Scots who, at the drop of a haggis or hint of a dram, bore the kilts off people.

She does, though, wish to see a lot of sonsie, perfectly presentable words and phrases preserved in our vocabulary and hopefully the book will contribute significantly to this end.

At her Joppa home, she told me: "I grew up within earshot of most of what's in the book. I'm of that generation" - she's in her mid-60s - "who used them and ideally I'd like to have them around still in the language, even if I don't use most of them myself. This is by no means an academic tome. My problem was getting it down to an appealing size. The jacket or vest-pocket format seemed a good idea at the time, as was the retail price at a penny under £5."

In my experience, dictionaries that afford a chuckle as you plough through them are rare. We have here a noteworthy exception.

Some of the contents have stuck with me since my weekend read and doubtless they'll linger long. As I write, huddled in a guid hap from a snell wind (it's pishing down, to boot), I can proffer practical lavatorial advice. If yer cludgie's boggin, if it's seriously clarty, really mawkin, positively mingin, call the environmental health (aye, all these words are in the dictionary, replete with definitions or origins).

Thee's nothing fantoosh about it at all, nothing with which the gentle folk of Morningside and the Grange are likely to readily identify, where they speak pan loaf.

Skitters (another gem) frequently ravages television viewers watching, say, Reporting Scotland or Scotland Today.

A heidbanger is "someone who acts in a wild, crazy way". If you have a "barrie" time at a party you're giving it a "general term of approval". The word is thought to be of Gypsy origin but became popular among teenagers in the Lothians in the 1980s.

As I write, I could fair go a Finnan haddie. Mind you, I'm a slaister at the kitchen table. Whatever happened to girdle scones, black bun, potted heid, mint imperials and soor plooms? I could knock my pan in finding out.

Perhaps I've become a bit too donnert for that sort of thing.

Adds Betty: "The language here will be second nature to older folk but offers the younger generation a good look at their rich linguistic heritage.

"It doesn't pretend to be comprehensive. I swithered what to include and what to keep out. Girn, for example, is a good one for a child and along the way I found that while Americans and Scots talk about their pinkie, to the English it's their little finger.

"With the Burns season imminent, the timing of publication could be interpreted as opportune. I'm happy with that, of course, as I am with its companion title (another for the jaicket pocket) The Concise Dictionary of Scottish Quotations."

They are published by Crombie Jardine of Rose Street, Edinburgh. "David Crombie was a sales rep at Chambers, another Edinburgh publishing house, when I was dictionaries editor there in the early 1980s. I was freelancing with them in the mid-Sixties and left in the mid-Eighties and I was back editing with them on a freelance basis from '87 to 2002."

She edited two hardback and two paperback editions of the universally-renowned Roget's Thesaurus for Longman from her home in the early '80s.

None of the previous Roget's editors had experienced so much happening wordwise so fast.

"So many of us are communicating by e-mail," she told me at the time, "so e-mail has gone into this edition along with e-commerce, e-business and cyberpreneur where you'd expect to see entrepreneur. The dotcom thing has spilled over into e-health. A phrase I quite like is snail mail, though the Post Office may well find it insulting!"

What concerns Betty Kirkpatrick now is that the last post will not sound for this batch of her Scottish words and phrases.

A wee stoater of a book. It can stir the blood in Scots of a certain age, to the extent, perhaps, you'll want to get out and get blootered.

• The Concise Dictionary of Scottish Words and Phrases by Betty Kirkpatrick is published by Crombie Jardine, priced £4.99.