JAGGY NETTLES

Dictionaries of the Scots Language references nettles under “jaggie” meaning

“prickly, sharp, pointed, piercing; stinging, of nettles”.

The following, from the Scotsman of July 1834, is one of our earliest citations and comes from a witness at a trial:

“There was an auld petticoat about her when the woman left, and she was not cold. She was laying on the grass beside some jaggy nettles, and she was warm”.

The Sunday Mail of November 1995 revealed an unlikely romantic association:

“... legendary pop group The Small Faces were inspired to write their biggest hit, Itchycoo Park, by courting couples who used to canoodle in a London park... beside bushes full of jaggy nettles”.

Of course, it’s not just nettles that are jaggy. In a letter published in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald of January 1909 one correspondent writes:

“I am studying ‘amateur gardening’. Until I have mastered it, I shall describe all thistles as jaggy nettles”.

In January 2024, the Perthshire Advertiser reported on another kind of jaggy nettle - Scoone Thistle F.C., otherwise known as:

“The Jaggie Nettles are fresh and raring to go after having the match postponed last weekend due to a frozen pitch.”

There is more than one way to sting.

And finally, in May 2022, Thomas Clark penned this valediction in Eeemis Stane (Ye’re Still Here? It’s Ower. Gang Hame):

“An it’s wi gratitude tae yese aw that we pull up oor stakes an gang oor mony ways. Strike oot intae the knap-hie fields o wheat an jaggy nettles.”

This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.

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