RUMMLIEGUTS
Scots is rich in words for people who speak foolishly: bletherskite, haiverel, yab. One of the more obscure expressions, however, is rummlieguts.
You won’t find rummlieguts as a “headword” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk), but it does appear as a derived form under rummle, a Scots word related to English rumble. The primary meaning of rumble in English is “to make a low heavy continuous sound” (Oxford English Dictionary), but the Scots citations in DSL suggest something more rowdy, including “to make a noise or disturbance”. Apparently “to rummle a spout” is a game, played in Moray: “to stuff a rain-pipe with paper and set fire to it, so as to cause a loud roaring, as a boys’ prank”.
Combinations include rummilskeerie, a wild, reckless person, and rummle-gumption. This last word has two meanings; if you emphasise “gumption” then it has a positive interpretation, ie “common-sense”, and was used with that meaning by Robert Burns, but if you emphasise “rummle” then it can mean a disturbance or episode of flatulence.
Rummlieguts means, as you might have guessed by now, someone suffering from wind in the stomach or, “as a term of contempt”, a windbag.
DSL gives only one citation, dating from 1955: “The ... rummliegutses wha hae shamit Scotland mair than ance wi their lah-de-dah alien blethers.”
Rummlieguts is not listed, it seems, as an “unparliamentary”
word at Westminster (unlike blackguard, dodgy or pipsqueak), nor is it disapproved of at Holyrood.
Maybe it is worth an outing?
Scots Word of the Week is written by Professor Jeremy Smith of Scottish Language Dictionaries 9 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh.
Visit their website at www.scotsdictionaries.org.uk
You can also contact them by email at mail@scotsdictionaries.org.uk
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