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• plunk v. to play truant, absent oneself (from school) without leave
• tawse n. a leather punishment strap with thongs, formerly used in schools
• darg n. (the result of product of) a day’s work
• braw adj. very good, excellent; handsome; splendid; brave

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tawse n. a leather punishment strap with thongs, formerly used in schools

“tawse n. a leather punishment strap with thongs, formerly used in schools”

19th May 2008

The tawse (also called the belt or strap) is now generally associated with bygone schooldays, given that corporal punishment has been outlawed from all Scottish schools. That said, such changes are relatively recent. The ban was applied to UK state schools in the 1980s, though private schools were only officially brought into line in 1998. Memories of the tawse and the cane have not faded entirely, but the nickname ‘wag-tawse’ is unlikely to be given to twenty-first century teachers.

The word is related to taw, a term for a lash or whip, tawse apparently taking on a plural ending in this sense to indicate the division of the strap into two or more lashes. Taw itself is derived from the Old English verb tawian, used to describe the preparation of raw materials, including the process of softening hides by beating them. References to the use of the tawse occur in Scottish texts from the sixteenth century onwards, a good illustrative example being provided by the records of Perth Kirk Session in 1619: "Johne Home and John Cragow (whose ages are not specified) being accuseit for thair misbehaviour … casting ane bonnat throw the kirk … war taikin imediatlie to the grammer scole and scourgeit on the hippis with Sanct Barthilmewis tawis and thairefter promeist nocht to do the lyk heirefter".

Moving closer to the present day, another context for the tawse is provided by Christopher Rush in his novel, A Twelvemonth and a Day (1985), recalling memories of life in Fife’s East Neuk: "in many a playground battle, where tense gunfighters faced one another for the draw, the invisible weapon turned out to be Miss Sangster’s tawse, the terror of the imagination, and instead of an air cruel with cordite fumes and the whang of bullets, we watched the last scenes of such dramas turn to farce".