I went to Scotland a wee* while ago.  It was beautiful and I loved it.  I will go again if the opportunity arises.  What I brought back with me, other than a longing to return, was the words ‘aye’ and ‘och’.

Aye is an affirmative.  It can be gently or enthusiastically wielded.  When someone is talking and you want to let them know you are hearing them an ‘oh, aye’ is more attentive than a ‘hmm’, has more patience than a ‘yes’, and less intrusive than almost anything else.  It can be bellowed happily and repeated (as in ‘aye, aye captain’) with ease.  Try that with a ‘yes’ and your mouth gets all tangled up with that hard ‘y’ sound at the beginning and that sibilant ‘s’ at the end.  Maybe that is why ‘yes’ gets shortened to ‘ya’.  ‘Aye’ doesn’t sound verbally lazy like ‘ya’.   I intentionally adopted ‘aye’, and now it just happens.  I occasionally hear it infiltrating my family’s words, and it makes me smile.

To balance the lovely lilting ‘aye’ I also adopted ‘och’.  That is a fun word to utilize.  ‘Och’ on its own can be derisive, dismissive, disbelieving, and surprised.  It can be said on a giggle or with a scowl, but its point is still conveyed.  ‘Och’ is a good accompaniment to ‘no’, it gives it a bit of a kick.  An ‘och, no’ communicates “I can’t believe you even asked/said that” without having to say all those words.  A ‘no’ on its own can indicate that the answer is debatable.  An ‘och, no’ indicates in no uncertain terms that the accompanying ‘no’ is firm and to challenge it would be to one’s own peril.  Word economy in action.

*I have used ‘wee’ my whole life. I had Scottish grandparents.