Last week’s word, baffie, has a possible relation in another footwear word, bauchle. The origins of bauchle are obscure but there is an Older Scots adjective, bauch, meaning ineffective, weak or defective. Words that end up in modern English with a silent ‘gh’ spelling usually have a ‘ch’ spelling in Scots and that well known Scots sound as in nicht. Rarely, as in cough, English has the ‘f’ sound and this can also happen in Scots to give doublets such as wauch and waff, which mean ‘musty’ or ‘a bad taste or smell’. So, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that bauch, with a diminutive suffix added to give bauchle, and baff, with its own diminutive suffix giving baffie, are in fact a pair. Although primarily an old shoe, bauchle’s possible link with the sense of Older Scots bauch is found in many quotations, including this from Tam Thrum’s Look before ye Loup (1793) “Our parliament, sic as it is, Harry, is no’ to mak’ a bauchle o’”. Applied to a person, its sense is made abundantly clear in William Queen’s We’re a’ Coortin’ (1926): “I'll tell her whit I think baith aboot her an’ her weans, ay, an’ aboot her man tae – the wee shauchly-leggit bauchle that he is”. Of shoes, it is used with both contempt and affection. Alexander Hislop’s The Proverbs of Scotland (1862) states “If it winna be a gude shoe we’ll mak a bauchel o’t”. In a poem To C. L., Esq. (c.1796) H. MacNeill writes “Wi’ hair unkaim’d, and beard unshorn, And slip-shod bachles, auld, and torn”. The benefits of a well-worn shoe, however, are extolled by John Buchan in Huntingtower (1922): “‘Even a young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle’, as my mother, honest woman, used to say”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.

This week's Word is spoken by Dauvit Horsbroch.