This one is from the archive - reposting for Burns Night 2020. Have a great time everyone!…
A little bit of Scots linguistic whimsy for Burns Night, spotted way out west along the River Thames at Strand-on-the-Green…
… a fine vessel named the Peerie Dunter. Peerie being…
and Dunter meaning…
And so: A small eider duck. Thanks to my handy Chambers Scots Dictionary for the definitions.
But peerie can also mean…
… a small comparatively small quantity of fluid such as a canal, say. And dunt is more commonly defined as…
(The dunt was the accepted modus operandi of the electrical layman who wished to get a clearer picture on his malfunctioning television set. At least it was when growing up in my house.) Thus the Peerie Dunter is the perfect name for a canal boat that will inevitably, from time-to-time brush by – or dunt – the odd peerie – or duck – in a peerie. Hence the Peerie Dunter is a peerie dunter.
Sláinte!
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