Weegies have long been known for the quickness of their wit and the sharpness of their tongues. But behind every surreal retort and casual, bloodthirsty threat, is there a hidden profundity? A deep philosophical stance? Aye right, maybe, aiblins, perhaps. It really doesn't matter when they're this funny. In Glasgow's DNA there is an inbuilt belief that making a fool of yourself is OK, as long as it gets a laugh, makes a buck, builds a better society of whatever. After all, nobody but a real fool never made a mistake and it's a well-known fact that Weegies do try harder and laugh louder. In Weegie Wit and Wisdom, find out why Glaswegians drink, the best threats and insults for every occasion and why the Weegie approach to life helps Glasgow consistently top the league as the UK's happiest city. Amusing and entertaining, with just the right amount of wit and wisdom, it's time to discover the secrets of the Weegie world.

Reproduction of the original.

This book will tell all you need to know about British English spelling. It's a reference work intended for anyone interested in the English language, especially those who teach it, whatever the age or mother tongue of their students. It will be particularly useful to those wishing to produce well-designed materials for teaching initial literacy via phonics, for teaching English as a foreign or second language, and for teacher training. English spelling is notoriously complicated and difficult to learn; it is correctly described as much less regular and predictable than any other alphabetic orthography. However, there is more regularity in the English spelling system than is generally appreciated. This book provides, for the first time, a thorough account of the whole complex system. It does so by describing how phonemes relate to graphemes and vice versa. It enables searches for particular words, so that one can easily find, not the meanings or pronunciations of words, but the other words with which those with unusual phoneme-grapheme/grapheme-phoneme correspondences keep company. Other unique features of this book include teacher-friendly lists of correspondences and various regularities not described by previous authorities, for example the strong tendency for the letter-name vowel phonemes (the names of the letters ) to be spelt with those single letters in non-final syllables.

This collection of poetry about Mark Twain explores a neglected dimension in his critical and popular reception during a period of over seventy years. The three hundred and fifty published ballads, sonnets, limericks, lyrics, couplets, and quatrains, including some in dialect, run the gamut from the banal and piquant to the eloquent, from rhymes by anonymous poetasters to highbrow tributes. Organized chronologically by topic, the sections also indicate the frequency with which the poems were reprinted and the venues in which they appeared. Though they were pitched to entertain general readers, this gathering should also prove useful to teachers and scholars of American literature. In all, they trace the crests in Twain’s fame and contemporary popular reputation over the decades and silhouette his pervasive presence in literary circles around the world during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Bean E.Fallwell loves grilled cheese sandwiches, old movies, her best friend Goose and God. This is the story of Bean's life, from her conception in the back seat of an off-duty cab to a bus-station phone booth in Cheyenne, Wyoming, thirty years later.

From the wildly popular bestselling author of The Keeper of Lost Things—an uplifting, slightly magical story about how it’s never too late to find out who you really are. "Ruth Hogan is the queen of uplifting fiction and Madame Burova reminds us why. The writing crackles with humor and warmth. I can't imagine a better book in which to lose yourself at the moment. Stunning, immersive and absolutely wonderful." --Annie Lyons, author of The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett Madame Burova—beloved Tarot reader, palmist, and clairvoyant—is retiring and leaving her booth on the Brighton seafront. After inheriting her mother’s fortune-telling business as a young woman, Imelda Burova has spent her life on the Brighton pier practicing her trade. She and her trusty pack of Tarot cards have seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Now, after a lifetime of keeping other people’s secrets, Madam Burova is ready to have a little piece of life for herself. But she still has one last thing to do—to fulfill a promise made in the 1970s, when she and her girlfriends were carefree, with their whole lives still before them. In London, it is time for another woman to make a fresh start. Billie has lost her university job, her marriage, and her place in the world when a sudden and unlikely discovery leaves her very identity in question. Determined to find answers, she must follow a trail…which leads to Brighton, the pier, and directly to Madame Burova’s door. In a story spanning over fifty years, Ruth Hogan has conjured a magical world of 1970s holiday camps and seaside entertainers, eccentrics, heroes and villains, the lost and the found. Young people will make careless choices which echo down the years….but it’s never too late to put things right.

"You, ya bastard! Ahm gonny stick your heid so far up your arse that you'll think that nothing has happened!" Ah, the Glasgow wag, always ready with a bon mot for any situation. Weegies have long been known for the quickness of their wit, the sharpness of their tongues. But behind every surreal retort and casual, bloodthirsty threat, is there a hidden profoundity? A deep philosophical stance? And does it matter when they're this funny? Ian Black, the best-selling author of Weegies vs Edinbuggers, discovered his philosophy for life on a number 63 bus heading for Partick from outside the Barras, copying it from a lad in his teens sitting beside him. The youngster was clearly mentally challenged but he was bubbly and cheerful, shaking his tambourine in everyone's faces, singing and smiling, asking everyone for a penny and raising a few smiles from the passengers. When the conductor came up and collected everyone's fares, Ian noticed that the young lad wasn't asked. And when the conductor had moved on a step or two the young boy turned to him and said: 'If you kid on you're daft, you get a free hurl.' It's been working for Ian ever since and this guide to Weegie Wit & Wisdom now lets you into the secrets of the Weegie world - and will amuse and entertain along the way.

Hugh Dempsey recounts his interesting and varied careers as journalist, historian, archivist and museum administrator.