Liam redux

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Fur-why wud ye clane yer hans?

Do you pay taxes to the British Government? Here’s what they are spending your money on. Every single word of the bollocks that follows is from the Ulster Scots translation of the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland’s leaflet “How can you help us prevent and control infection in hospitals”. Whut’s this blaud aboot? Ye’ll…

Liam
2–3 minutes

bollocksDo you pay taxes to the British Government?

Here’s what they are spending your money on. Every single word of the bollocks that follows is from the Ulster Scots translation of the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland’s leaflet “How can you help us prevent and control infection in hospitals”.

Whut’s this blaud aboot?

Ye’ll mebbe hae heerd tell o bein kittle tae be taen bad wi a smittle affset whanivver ye hae tae gae intae ospittle. This ospittle an oor darg-bann at leuks eftèr ye lays oot thair accoonts tae kep this frae cummin aboot.

We cud dae wi a han frae yersel forbye.

Nae mettèr aboot gin ye’r a patient or yin o thair freens, ye’ll kin gie iz a han tae kep an haud smittin adae wi cuitèrin. We’d be ableeged gin ye’d raed this blaud an see tae dae tha hamelt thïngs ye’r gien wut o in this blaud.

Tha mair yer hans micht leuk clane the’ cud be cairryin skaithlie gerrums. Sin thon’s thawye o’t, clanin yer hans richt maks an inpit tae keppin onie smit frae spreedin.

Whut wye tae clane yer hans richt

Wat yer hans in ablow waarm rinnin wattèr an skoosh oan rinnie sape. Skoosh alcohol jeelie or reamoan yer dry hans. (Gin yer hans leuks fylt ye maun gie thaim a waash.) Screenge yer loofs thegither an atween yer fing’rs.

Fur mair wittins

Gin ye’r fashed ava or hae onie spierins anent keppin doon tha smit, or anent tha wyce gienin this blaud, ye wudnae taak tae tha waard sïstèr or tha owergangin nurse, wud ye? Ye’ll kin ax tae hae a wurd wi tha Smit Owerance

You could show this gibberish to 20 000 random people in Belfast and most of them would guess that someone had and drawn a blank with the monkey / typewriter / Shakespeare experiment . No literate person in the north of Ireland talks like that unless they are making a pitch for a government grant. Everyone who can read is fairly proficient in standard English and the illiterate aren’t going to learn much from a text heavy leaflet on the benefits of washing your hands.

In Afghanistan they give the Taliban blankets and wind up radios. In the north of Ireland they pay for bollocks to be printed to keep loyalist gangsters pacified.

20 responses to “Fur-why wud ye clane yer hans?”

  1. Reuben Avatar
    Reuben

    Ths is a joke right?
    Fucking hell

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  2. shug Avatar
    shug

    Ye!h they all talk the bastardisation of the ruling lanquage,not given oppertuanty to flourish in the past,some thought not to long ago.
    Rob culture,you peely whally skirt less basterdisers. How dare ye come here wh yer daft talk of nowin it .We breath the same as yer sel .Socialism.

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  3. shug Avatar
    shug

    In one!s language there is dignity of who you are, what is your cultural being what makes you whole,the human need to belong.Important is your tongue, native to this planet that we all share.Maybe one day our great granchildren will not need the education of cultural borders,or would that make a socialist world a boring place.Yeh it is not a joke.

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  4. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Is it a joke? That’s a question for a French philosopher.

    It’s a professionally designed and printed leaflet which is being distributed in state run hospitals. That part is true.

    If anyone were to start using Ulster Scots in a hospital for more than thirty seconds no one would have a clue what they are saying. No one in the north of Ireland spends all day speaking like that

    Is someone pissing themselves laughing because they get paid for doing this stuff? We can only speculate.

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  5. Jodley Avatar
    Jodley

    From a midwifery forum, where this prize piece of conceptual art is being discussed with much hilarity…

    “Actuallly pissed myself… Better go for a dook or a shoor!

    I kind of want to live in a world where skitters is the official word for diarrhoea. Though one of the women told the doctor she hadn’t vomited, but had the “actual physical boak” the other day. I had to translate.”

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  6. Jim Carroll Avatar
    Jim Carroll

    In any case was Ulster- Scots ever spoken anywhere outside a small area of North antrim ?. I cant see much difference between Ukster Scots and what is spoken in the west of scotland. Far more scots then Ulster.

    The thing is, the Loyalists who are promoting this, largely, dont even speak it themselves. I saw a fairly well known former UDA commander in a pub in these parts recently who seemed well able to express himself in standard english, even if a little loudly.

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  7. splinteredsunrise Avatar
    splinteredsunrise

    It is good sound advice not to visit the hospital if you suffer from the coul, flew, boakin or skitters. And that runnie sope isn’t there for nothing.

    There are also Ulster Scots leaflets in JobCentres instructing the monoglot Ulster Scots speaker on quhat ye kin dae tae fine a jab.

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  8. Rustbelt Radical Avatar
    Rustbelt Radical

    does it make some sort of bigot if when I read “Ulster Scots” in my minds eye the character saying it is always Elmer Fudd?

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  9. splinteredsunrise Avatar
    splinteredsunrise

    Not at all. According to Nelson McCausland, more than 75 American presidents have been Ulster Scots, so we may as well add Elmer Fudd to the hall of fame.

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  10. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Jodley it’s mean not to post the link to the forum.

    “Ye wee skitter ye” was a phrase my mother used to express disapproval and from the context I always assumed it meant “disrespectful nuisance”. Diarrhoea often is I suppose.

    There are lots of phrases like that which are fairly commonly used in the north but no one would dream of conducting an entire conversation using them. It would make a lot more sense to produce leaflets in Polish which is much more widely spoken in Norn Iron. It would but for the fact that most Polish people understand the need to wash their hands.

    The monoglot Ulster Scots, should such a person exist in this or any parallel universe, is wasting her or his time looking for a job.

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  11. splinteredsunrise Avatar
    splinteredsunrise

    Government bodies do produce leaflets in Polish, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Mandarin and Cantonese. These may be useful to speakers of those languages whose English is limited. Controversially, there are also leaflets in Irish, though I seriously doubt there are any monoglot Irish speakers anywhere in Ireland.

    But the Ulster Scots ones do provoke a lot of derision, even (especially?) amongst Prods. On the other hand, a grant application form in Ulster Scots might come in handy.

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  12. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    There are also Ulster Scots leaflets in JobCentres instructing the monoglot Ulster Scots speaker on quhat ye kin dae tae fine a jab.

    Ye kin stoap pretendin ye allus tak lyk thon, fur a kick-oaff. Or maybe not – all this stuff has got to be produced somewhere, and I’m sure there are always openings for bright young lads who can (a) read Ulster Scots (b) write Ulster Scots and (c) without laughing.

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  13. i4ni Avatar
    i4ni

    Hospitals or oh spittles? Genuine question. d’ya ken?

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  14. shug Avatar
    shug

    Awe weel thers auways Rabie Burns.

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  15. Meascra na mblaganna « Splintered Sunrise

    […] is unimpressed by the Norn Iron health authorities producing glossy leaflets instructing the monoglot Ulster-Scots […]

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  16. Nick Fredman Avatar
    Nick Fredman

    Irvine Welsh hasn’t had a book out for a couple of years, maybe he needed a corporate copy writing gig to pay the bills.

    In any case such a public health message seems to be needed in whatever language doctors read. I happened to recently read the results of an observation study on the incidence of hand-washing between patients by doctors in different departments of a large US hospital. The *highest*, surgery, was 80% – emergency was 50% ! Might be safer to stitch yourself up.

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  17. chjh Avatar
    chjh

    The SSP don’t take entirely the same view, I notice: http://ssy.org.uk/2010/02/square-go-wi-the-sdl-in-edinburger/

    I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why that is politically acceptable, while Ulster-Scots is bollocks.

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  18. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    I can’t speak for what goes on in Ulster, but I think it’s politically acceptable to write things in Scots on a Scottish website because people do speak Scots in Scotland.

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  19. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    chjh – the SSP piece you link to is headed “Here’s the Glesgie style lowdoon oan the demo opposin’ the SDL oan the 20th ay February.”

    and the author’s first comment below reads

    “Thank you! I’m so flattered. I didn’t people would like it this much! ”

    It’s a bit of a joke, in other words. It’s certainly not a translation into Scots for the benefit of monoglot or preferential Scots speakers, which is what the Ulster Scots stuff purports to be.

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  20. fiannanahalba Avatar
    fiannanahalba

    Ive never heard the majority of SSY/SSP members speak in a strong dialect- they mostly speak very nice middle class English with a Scottish accent.

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