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• flyting n. a scolding (match), quarrelling; a contest between poets in mutual abuse
• howf(f) n. a favourite haunt, a meeting place, freq a public house
• petted lip n. the expression on a sulky face (esp. of a child); a sulky mood
• gar v. make (a person or thing do something)
• hotchin, hoatchin, adj. seething, infested, overrun (with); restless, eager

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petted lip n. the expression on a sulky face (esp. of a child); a sulky mood

“petted lip n. the expression on a sulky face (esp. of a child); a sulky mood ”

16th April 2007

A petted or pettit lip, a grumpy expression accompanied by a protruding lower lip, is a visual cue generally recognised as sign of disquietude and lack of contentment. Though often literal, the act of hingin the pettit lip may also be figurative and refer to a peevish state of mind. Michael Munro's The Patter (1985) gives the following illustrative quotation, no doubt familiar to anyone responsible for a teenager: "Never mind the petted lip. You're not going and that's that". Thanks to a variety of antics on the pitch, Scottish newspapers contain a wealth of fitba quotations documenting players doing all manner of things with their petted lips, from tripping over them to doing keepie-uppie with them.

Similar constructions such as "pet lip" have been known to occur in some English dialects. A. E. Pease's Dictionary of the Dialect of the North Riding of Yorkshire (1928) gives the example: "T' bairns poolin a pet lip". Pettit derives from pet, a noun denoting a bad mood or huff that is often brought on by a feeling of being slighted. Such fits of ill temper have been recorded in English and Scottish sources since the late sixteenth century, the earliest known Scottish example being from James VI & I's book of kingship, the Basilicon Doron (c1598): "Feare not thaire orping (fretting) nor taking the pett als lang as ye reule ueill (well)".

Petted lips are first recorded by George Watson in his Roxburghshire Word-Book (1923), and they can sometimes result from simple disappointment. As noted in a review in the Herald a few years back, "Some groups are just so popular with the Celtic Connections audience that one could imagine ructions - petted lips at the very least - if the programme didn't feature them year on year".