SCOTS WORD OF THE WEEK

CARNAPTIOUS, adjective: bad-tempered, irritable, quarrelsome WE SCOTS, it seems, have many descriptive terms for negative personality traits.

One of the more descriptive is carnaptious and just saying it conjures up an image of an irascible, usually male, person.

Its origins are unclear but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggest that it could be a form of English ‘captious’ which has a similar meaning and gives its roots as Scottish and Irish dialect.

OED also has the earliest attestation from the Ulster Journal of Archaeology of 1858: “A nivver seen wan so curnaptious.”

The Dictionary of the Scots Language (dsl.org.uk) also has examples from Ulster Scots, the following is from W G Lyttle’s Readings by Robin from 1879: “He’s a cross carnapshus wee brat, so he is!”.

The first Scottish example comes from Curdies by H S Robertson and is from Glasgow in 1931: “That belangt to ane they ca’d Rab Frew, a carnaptious auld deevil he was”.

The first 21st century example comes from The Herald of 28th September 2000: “It’s said that when a rescue ship reached a remote desert island, the crew were astounded to discover that a single survivor of the shipwreck, a carnaptious Scotsman, had built two churches — one to attend, and one to stay away from on principle.”

Carnaptious is such a powerfully descriptive term that it is still regularly used by journalists today: “To put this in context though, Brian Wilson, the carnaptious hammer of Scottish independence, was once himself a nationalist.” (The Herald 2 May, 2016). Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries, e-mail her via: mail@scotsdictionaries.org.uk. for questions or information.

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