There’s endless discussion about points of law, reloading technique, and the kit in use on SD so I’ve moved on to deerstalking jargon.
In a post on another thread I pointed out that as “gralloching” was a made-up word the misspelling of it was excusable and understandable. Everyone knows what it’s meant to mean, and it is definitely slang whether or not it appears on Google or in Wikipedia.
Some of the folks on here including Admin from over the border have posted that this is a valid word, even an English word. It falls to the English to maintain that no matter what’s online it’s wrong, and that this is a dubious Scottish addition to the lexicon.
You can switch off now if you want to because you might find the next bit a bit boring, but others might have something useful to add if they read it through. There might be an expert out there. I’ve tried my best to explain things by highlighting some bits.
The useof the term “gralloch”can only have come from the gaelic noun “greallach” (guts,intestines). I think this term has been corrupted and widened over time by the Scots, and accepted unwittingly by the English. It’s easy to see how. Delivered in a heavy accent by a celt eviscerating a carcass it could be remembered as “gralloch”. It sounds authentic, and is suitably rugged & Scottish.
Now, in English we can take our own noun “the guts”, derive the verb “to gut” from it, and use “gutting” as a description for the whole process. In the field of deerstalking someone has done the same thing by taking the gaelic noun “greallach”, mispronounced it as “gralloch”, come up with a collective noun “the gralloch”, the infinitive “to gralloch”, and then called the whole business “gralloching”.
The problem is that the original gaelic word has been hijacked and anglicised, because the Scots have forgotten their own language where it wouldn’t suffer such misuse. That needs some explaining, but Scots Gaelic is primarily a spoken language where the spelling and the sound of words constantly changes to clarify speech and meaning. The grammar and the order of words in a sentence is very different from what we know. Generally sentences begin with a verb.
The word “greallach” used in any other way in the native tongue changes in both form and sound. Depending on use the other words in the sentence may also change. I can put this in a stalking context using another gaelic noun “fiadh”
(a deer)
In gaelic– ‘to gralloch (a) deer’ would be:-
Thoir a’ghreallach a feidh (take the guts from a deer)
As you’ve used the indefinite article (‘the’) the noun is aspirated, the g(h) is elided, and the noun is then pronounced “a-reel-ach”. The word for deer also has to change. The ‘a’ preceding it means ‘from’ - not the English ‘a’ by the way.
In the present tense – ‘I am gralloching a deer’ would be:-
Tha mi a’tabhairt a’ghreallach a feidh (I am taking the guts from a deer)
No matter how you use “greallach” it remains a noun, and loses the ‘G’sound. It can never be a verb in gaelic so nor can it’s equivalent be. In other words it can’t be transposed now or ever, and never should have been.... if you get my drift.
You can now see why it was easier to come up with such a snappy cod-gaelic word rather than struggle with the rules of grammar. The ‘g’ word isn’t in my 1996 edition of the OED, but might have made it now as it’s in common use. All the same every use of it is wrong, and it’s a *******isation born from an unholy union of Scots and English.
In a post on another thread I pointed out that as “gralloching” was a made-up word the misspelling of it was excusable and understandable. Everyone knows what it’s meant to mean, and it is definitely slang whether or not it appears on Google or in Wikipedia.
Some of the folks on here including Admin from over the border have posted that this is a valid word, even an English word. It falls to the English to maintain that no matter what’s online it’s wrong, and that this is a dubious Scottish addition to the lexicon.
You can switch off now if you want to because you might find the next bit a bit boring, but others might have something useful to add if they read it through. There might be an expert out there. I’ve tried my best to explain things by highlighting some bits.
The useof the term “gralloch”can only have come from the gaelic noun “greallach” (guts,intestines). I think this term has been corrupted and widened over time by the Scots, and accepted unwittingly by the English. It’s easy to see how. Delivered in a heavy accent by a celt eviscerating a carcass it could be remembered as “gralloch”. It sounds authentic, and is suitably rugged & Scottish.
Now, in English we can take our own noun “the guts”, derive the verb “to gut” from it, and use “gutting” as a description for the whole process. In the field of deerstalking someone has done the same thing by taking the gaelic noun “greallach”, mispronounced it as “gralloch”, come up with a collective noun “the gralloch”, the infinitive “to gralloch”, and then called the whole business “gralloching”.
The problem is that the original gaelic word has been hijacked and anglicised, because the Scots have forgotten their own language where it wouldn’t suffer such misuse. That needs some explaining, but Scots Gaelic is primarily a spoken language where the spelling and the sound of words constantly changes to clarify speech and meaning. The grammar and the order of words in a sentence is very different from what we know. Generally sentences begin with a verb.
The word “greallach” used in any other way in the native tongue changes in both form and sound. Depending on use the other words in the sentence may also change. I can put this in a stalking context using another gaelic noun “fiadh”
(a deer)
In gaelic– ‘to gralloch (a) deer’ would be:-
Thoir a’ghreallach a feidh (take the guts from a deer)
As you’ve used the indefinite article (‘the’) the noun is aspirated, the g(h) is elided, and the noun is then pronounced “a-reel-ach”. The word for deer also has to change. The ‘a’ preceding it means ‘from’ - not the English ‘a’ by the way.
In the present tense – ‘I am gralloching a deer’ would be:-
Tha mi a’tabhairt a’ghreallach a feidh (I am taking the guts from a deer)
No matter how you use “greallach” it remains a noun, and loses the ‘G’sound. It can never be a verb in gaelic so nor can it’s equivalent be. In other words it can’t be transposed now or ever, and never should have been.... if you get my drift.
You can now see why it was easier to come up with such a snappy cod-gaelic word rather than struggle with the rules of grammar. The ‘g’ word isn’t in my 1996 edition of the OED, but might have made it now as it’s in common use. All the same every use of it is wrong, and it’s a *******isation born from an unholy union of Scots and English.
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