An A to Z of the Doric: an occasional series. F

Doric, the dialect spoken in the North-East of Scotland is rich in words and phrases associated with the land and the sea. Over the next few weeks I will try to illustrate some of them in an A-Z using examples of their use taken mainly from Buchan Claik, The Saut an the Glaur o't written in 1989 by Peter Buchan and David Toulmin.

FEART: Frightened, scared.

Miss talpa, oor dother is affa feart o Jennie-lang-legs. (Our daughter is very frightened of Daddy longlegs.)

The fearsome cratur in the blip is an Indian gharial Gavialis gangeticus, a long-snouted, fresh-water, fish-eating crocodile. Gharials can grow to be very large, the largest on record being a male 23 ft in length, which was shot in the Kosi River in northern Bihar in January 1924. Thankfully, gharials concentrate on fish and do not attack humans, well, not very often.

Zoomify and be feart, be very, very feart.