Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) defines puggie as: “The hole in a game of marbles into which the marbles are rolled; the bank, kitty, jackpot or pool in a game of cards or the like” and gives the related senses of a one-armed bandit or fruit machine and a cash-dispenser.
One-armed bandits or fruit machines first appear in DSL in the following from Michael Munro’s The Patter (1985): “... The word is also used to mean a one-armed bandit or fruit machine, and I have also heard of it being used for an automatic cash-dispenser outside a bank: ‘Ah just put ma kerd in your puggy an it swallied it!’”. An experience dreaded by all of us.
In the 21st century (2003) a DSL Edinburgh correspondent sent in this usage: “Ah’m aye gaun tae the puggie tae tak oot money”. We would be interested to hear if anyone has more recent published evidence for puggie meaning ATM.
The term is still in use for fruit machines. Janey Godley, writing in the Herald of February 2006, recounted: “I like the upstairs bar at the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow. When I owned a pub I hated the puggie machines and blaring televisions and the Chip has neither”. More recently and a telling sign of difficult times (again in The Herald: September 2022) the following almost elegiac observation appeared: “Another pub taking down the darts board, emptying the puggie, sweeping under the pool table for any stray 50 pence pieces and closing its doors for good”.
Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language. Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here