The item about oor leid, lingo, having hundreds of snow-related words is no surprise ("Scots say snow 421 ways", The Herald, September 23). Ian Thomson’s whimsical and witty letter (September 24) catches the drift so to speak.
One word that typifies our weather chat is the dreich, and how representative it is of a weather condition that is too often prevalent. As I write this, it is dreich – a mix of cloud, rain lurking about, no breeze – to use another word, monotonous. But monotonous doesn’t quite have the descriptive power of dreich, which is a more body-enveloping word, enfolding a person’s soul. Dreich: it has the power to absorb your being. They don’t make words like that every day.
Ian Johnstone,
84 Forman Drive,
Peterhead.
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