Apart from haggis, mince and tatties is one of Scotland’s most iconic national dishes which has nurtured many generations of Scots. Mince is so embedded in the national psyche that it has developed many unusual and inexplicable meanings. 

It features in insults such as: “He talks a lot o mince” (Michael Munro The Patter 1985) or if ‘yer heid’s fu o mince’ you’re either  very confused or a complete fool, as illustrated by this example from The Observer: “if tensions move the pace on to straight urban demotic, our respected Minister [David Blunkett] can expect to be told his heid’s full of mince, or called, most woundingly, a numpty.” (10 August 1997) and, staying with politics, the Daily Record of 23rd April 2015 tells voters that “Only you can decide who’s talking mince”.

Brian Montieth writing in the Scotsman notes: “Nobody in England would use the word “mince” in this pejorative manner - while in Scotland it is common in colloquial parlance to say: “Your heid’s full of mince,” or “That’s just mince” as a way of providing a semi-humorous put-down without resorting to swearing” (22nd April 2013).

A stupid person or persons can be described as being as thick as mince, as Hardeep Singh Kohli writes: “Today’s Tories, for all their privilege and erudite education, are arguably the least able coterie of Conservatives we have ever had in power. Basically, they are thick as mince” (Sunday Herald 6 December 2015).

Finally, if someone is listless, idle or untidy they are accused of being like a pound of mince: “this frequenting of the Empress every afternoon and sitting about the house like a pound o mince isnae helping anybody” (The Independent on Sunday 26 June 2011). And an Edinburgh informant from 2005 informs an untidy person: “Yer claes are hingin like a pun o mince.” 

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries