Parritch n porridge

It’s as plain as parritch that parritch is not just for breakfast. A supper of “The halesome Porritch, chief of Scotia’s food” is praised by Robert Burns in the Cotter’s Saturday Night and the Scots Magazine (December 1953) describes a diet of “parritch in the mornin, oatmeal fried in creesh and tatties at dennertime, and parritch at nicht”.
Although it is by no means a dish confined to Scotland, parritch (an altered pronunciation of the earlier form “potage”) was until quite recently such a staple of the Scots diet that it became the foundation, not only for a day’s work, but also for wisdom.
One such piece of worldly observation in A Henderson’s A Few Rare Proverbs (1832) advises that “Cauld parritch is sooner het again than new anes made”, a metaphor which refers to the ease of rekindling romantic old flames.
This last example demonstrates a curious thing about the Scots grammar of both porridge and soup. Many speakers and writers, including Sir Walter Scott in Old Mortality (1816), treat these as plurals: “‘They’re gude parritch eneugh,’ said Mrs. Wilson, ‘if ye wad but take time to sup them’”.
True gourmets know porridge needs salt. If you are “no able to buy saut for yer parritch” you must be very poor indeed. Anyone “no worth the saut tae his parritch” is lacking in spirit or character. On the other hand, if you “pepper someone’s parritch”, you make things very hot for them. Outwitting someone or leaving them no loophole to find in your argument is “giving them a clean parritch-stick (often known as a spurtle) tae lick”.
Many of these sayings are lost to the cornflake and muesli generation, but at least the put-down for a garrulous haiver is still current: “Save yer breath tae cool yer parritch”.

This article was written by Chris Robinson of Scots Language Dictionaries. www.scotsdictionaries.org.uk


This weeks word is said by Ann from Falkirk, a 49 year old admin worker in the oil industry.