WHEN the first minister and president-in-waiting of the republic of Scotland starts speaking Gaelic, we teuchters sit up and take notice. When we figure out he is not actually speaking our language but some obscure Scots – or, even worse, Doric – we go back to completely ignoring the poor fellow again.
So when Alex Salmond said recently that the election in Glasgow North-East was going to be “a brammer”, Gaels from Galson to Galashiels looked at each other and together went: “Duda?” What the heck was the big man on about?
I was quite shocked. Almost as shocked as I was on Saturday night when I turned on the telly to see Harry Hill’s TV Burp only to find Jock Murray, Kenny Mobil and the other naked peatcutters flashing their credentials on there. Did you see that? No? Count yourself very lucky, indeed.
Brammer, or so we all thought up here, was a proper Gaelic term that had been nicked and moulded by uncaring monoglots to fit the rules of English. Like the word galore, and duff, and subsidy.
Predictably, all the political correspondents were scrambling for their compendiums of Scottish slang. And a right burach they got themselves into as they decided to get to the bottom of this brammer business.
Alex Salmond meets a bramair in Stornoway
Some said it was a term from the military in India and from the Hindu god Brahma, so it meant something deserving of respect and admiration. Hmm.
Some quoted a slang dictionary that had brammer listed between bowfin’ (smelly) and brassic (broke) as a west of Scotland word for splendid. Might have been what Alex Salmond meant but, nope, not up here it isn’t.
Others said it was another word for a woman that is pleasing to the eye as an alternative to smasher or stoater. No, that’s just pios math.
Let’s be honest, they were all wrong as far as we were concerned. Brammer, brammar, brahma, bràmair, with an accent or without – however you spell it – is a mighty fine word.
It is, of course, a term used when addressing children of school age about their boyfriends and girlfriends.
As in: “So, young Tommy, have you got a brammer yet?”
It can also be handy for parental guidance sessions about the role of the teaching profession, as in: “Now, Kylie, listen to me. Mr Macdonald is not your brammer. He is just your maths teacher. Yes, I know he looks like Simon Cowell, but that is not a good thing. OK?”
The term is polite, unequivocal and a completely innocent and Gaelic way of addressing the sticky matter of interpersonal relationships. That means that it has always been completely suitable for use on the Gaelic radio greetings and requests programme Na Dùrachdan on Friday evenings.
However, and remember this, it is not suitable for using when you stumble out of the Lewis Bar on a Saturday night and are convinced someone is giving you the glad eye.
No, you don’t ask if he or she has a brammer yet. You, of course, ask if they would like to come back to a party because you have half a tonne of cheap supermarket lager back at the flat and you need someone to help you finish it. Well, I am told that is how the romantic etiquette of most Stornoway lads goes nowadays.
But which is the correct spelling of that word? To answer the question, I tracked down Neen Mackay, a veteran of the greetings programme from, oh, decades ago. That word was a big part of her life back then, as I remember.
I think Neen was worried that I would not put it the right way in the paper. So just to put her mind at rest that I have not made a mistake or that she is not being misquoted in any way I will just reprint her entire reply.
“Aye, aye, cove. Properly, it’s bràmair. But, for country folk, any word beginning with ‘bram’ will do.
“So, how are you, anyway, big boy? Good to hear from you. All this talk of bràmairs takes me back to when you and I were working together. Gosh, we had a few bràmairs back then, didn’t we? In fact, we were a couple of bràmairs. Oh mo chreach sa thainig. Good job our partners don’t know what you and I got up to back then, eh?
“If I can help you with any little thing at all just give me a tinkle any time.”
Yes, well, I have no idea what Ms Mackay is on about there. I hardly knew the woman. It was all a long time ago.
Anyway, she reckoned the correct word was bràmair, even if they did have their own funny versions in Dalmore and Dalbeg. She should know.
That was good enough for me, so I went to check that word in the Gaelic college’s Stòr-dàta Briathrachais Gàidhlig. That’s a sort of online database of all Gaelic thingummybobs in the known universe.
And, bingo, it’s there. It is listed but, in a piece of awful, rampant Gaelic sexism, it has bràmair down as just meaning girlfriend or pin-up. On the radio request show and while I was growing up in Great Bernera primary school at any rate, it had always included us males of the species, too.
So I conducted more research and found another problem. Looking up bramair in that most comprehensive of tomes, Dwelly’s Gaelic Dictionary, I found it listed also, but with yet another altogether different meaning. While putting his dictionary together, Mr Dwelly decided that a bramair was a flatulent fellow. That’s what it says. I am only the messenger.
I looked up flatulent. All I can say is that I am more confused than ever by what Alex Salmond said about the Glasgow North East by-election. While politicians have often been said to be full of hot air, it is really a bit much for anyone to call any of them a bramair in the Dwelly’s sense of the word. Even if they sometimes are.
Obviously the brammer rejected him, Iain – an experience which some of us were all too familiar with.