64 Transactions. 



couth is unco, and the preposition with is wi'. The impre- 

 catory phrase faith not is faint — as faint a bit ! and the 

 verb to smother is to smoor. 

 Faint — 



" His locket lettered braw brass collar 



Showed him the gentleman and scholar ; 

 But though he was o' high degree 

 The feint a pride, nae pride had he." 



— Burns^s Twa Dogs. 



On the other hand the Scotch retain the guttural gh. 

 They do this, 



1. When the English suppress it as in high for high, and 

 the verbs brought, sought, thought ; so also daughter. 



2. When it is softened by the English ; as in cough, laugh, 

 rough. And 



3. When the English make the sound hard, or change it 

 into h, as hough for hoclc. 



It would thus appear that in the Scotch the gh retains at 

 all times its guttural sound. 



Ch also, which is softened by the English, is retained 

 hard by the Scotch with great uniformity. As for chaff they 

 say cauf ; chalk, cauh ; chest, hist; churn, kirn; breeches 

 are breeks ; and the such and such like of the English are 

 with the Scotch sik and sik like. The stitch is a steek, as, 

 " A steek in time saves nine." To stretch is to streek. To 

 thatch is to theik. And as for the ditch it might be thought 

 that the ditcher and the dyker had different occupations. 

 But the old proverb, 



" February fills the dyke, 

 Be it black or be it white ;" 



And the old soug, 



" My fathers a delver o dykes," 



would teach us otherwise. By the same analogy, itchy is iky, 

 or, as the Scots pronounce it, yeuky. The kirk has become 

 a church. The carl has become a churl; but the English 



