Since Scotland and England have different laws regarding trespassing, I’ll try to answer as best I can from the Scottish perspective.___________

The answer to this question is; yes, maybe, if they don’t get caught.

In Scotland there is a piece of legislation called the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, commonly known as the “right to roam” which, basically, means that members of the public can access just about most land and inland bodies of water, even if they are privately owned, generally for recreational purposes. It’s sometimes stated in Scotland that we do not have trespass laws at all, which isn’t true, but say, for instance, Laird Lairdy McLaird owns a big fancy estate with loads of woods and rivers and meadows, as a member of the public you have a right to be on that land, whether to walking your dog, swimming in the river, or even say, if you’re house is on the other side of the estate and you cannae be arsed walking around it.

There are exceptions. If say, our laird’s house (or castle) is in the middle of the estate, you can’t just walk into it or any part of the land which would be classed as his garden. That’s his home. That’s where he lives. This also extends to some other pretty obvious places, like building sites, military bases, schools and any land associated with it, a tourist attraction that charges an entry fee (such as a castle), and, as in the case of Old McLaird, someone’s house or garden.

Castles in Scotland can be occupied, as in, they are someone’s home; visitor attractions, which may have exhibits and such inside; or they can be ruins. In the first two cases, I’d say unless you can think of a reason why they would be empty and why nobody would be checking in on them, then you couldn’t use these as hideouts.

In the last case - maybe, if they don’t get caught. Ruined castles are often just sort of lying there, and people can generally go in and out as they please free of charge.They are generally maintained by someone, but there’s usually no office or anything like that attached to castle. They’re just sort of… lying there, unattended. But, I’d say that in order to not be caught, the ruins would either need to be isolated enough to not attract too many people, or small enough for people not to care.

Also, we are talking ruins here - like, no roof, no windows or doors, probably half the walls are gone. In this case I’d suggest your characters could possibly be camping out in the ruins, which I’ve heard of people doing, but not for long periods of time. And if they got caught, they’d probably just be told to shift. Trespassing isn’t a criminal matter in Scotland so other than that there’s not a whole lot they’d be able to do.

So, if your characters are okay with living in old ruins and can do so without anyone catching them, then yeah, theoretically, they could have their hideout in a castle.

Mod Haggis

Hello!

So, to answer the first two questions, while there are some cultural differences between Scotland and England, they’re not so great that they would leave anyone scratching their heads, as you say. Also, in the case of a Scottish character, we do get a lot of exposure to English culture through the media and such, so I doubt that your character would be confused down south. I opened this up to the UK Scripties and they’re pretty much in agreement with me, so from both sides of the border I think you’re okay.

A couple of things that could cause confusion though are dialects and accents. But I’d think that a person from any part of the country would likely speak standard English when around people not from their own area, and generally different accents/dialects aren’t really that hard to understand, especially in the context of a broader conversation. Also, there might be some cultural and historical references a Scottish character wouldn’t get because we don’t get a lot of English history up here. I don’t if it’s the same in England, unfortunately, but you’ll know that for yourself.

As for the last questions, I did try out Google to see what I could find, but in terms of cultural differences there wasn’t much. All I can really recommend is to look up the specific regions your characters come from and compare them. I did however manage to get a couple of resources on accent/dialect comparisons.

http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Millenium-memory-bankhttp://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Evolving-English-WordBank

The first one has recordings from different parts of England and you can look them up by region, and the last is examples of words found throughout parts of the English-speaking world.

Mod Haggis.

A Scottish person living in the US will most likely adapt to the culture around them, so in terms of language, I wouldn’t worry too much about her not sounding authentic enough. However, she may still slip some Scots words into conversation.

Some words she could use could be aye/naw (yes/no), ken (know), wee (small), wean/bairn (child/baby), crabbit (moody/grumpy), eejit (idiot), tube (also idiot), bampot (idiot, again), glaikit (stupid), scunnered (tired), blootered (drunk), boke (retch/vomit), braw (pretty/attractive/nice to look at), feart (afraid), lassie (girl/young woman), wan/yin (one) and greet (cry). Some phrases she might say could include “you’re no right in the heid” (meaning you’re crazy or stupid), “I’m up to high doh” (I’m stressed out/worked up), and “away and boil your heid” (something you say when someone’s talking rubbish or being a nuisance). There’s also “yer da’ sells Avon” which is supposed to be an insult but is just something stupid we say for a laugh.

She might occasionally drop some of these words into conversation - perhaps without realising it - but she won’t be speaking broad Scots whilst surrounded by Americans. Also, some of these words are regional. If she’s from the Highlands or Islands, she probably won’t use them, and if she’s from the Aberdeen area she’ll most likely speak Doric. But if she’s a Lowlander these will do.

Some things you could do to make her seem more authentically Scottish could be:- have her start conversations with strangers in public, like on the bus, in a waiting room, in a queue, etc. Scottish people will talk to anyone and everyone; and not just small talk. She’ll have their life story by the end of the conversation.- have her complain about the weather. If it’s too hot, she’ll complain. If it’s too cold, she’ll complain. If it’s raining, she’ll ask when it’s gonna stop, if it hasn’t rained in a while, she’ll wonder when the rain’s coming back.- she might like a drink. Scottish people love to drink, and we’re good at it, but obviously avoid making it seem like she has a drinking problem. We love a drink but we’re not alcoholics.- Scottish people have a great sense of humour. We laugh at everything. We laugh at ourselves, at each other. We love innuendo and double entendres. We’re very self-deprecating. Scottish comedy tends to be heavily based in the pretty shitty aspects of Scotland, and we make a lot of jokes at our expense. Also, we like to rib our friends, and generally the closer we are to someone the more we will do so.- have her support a Scottish football team, particularly Rangers or Celtic, plus maybe a local team. If she comes from a Protestant background, she’ll be a Rangers fan, if Catholic, it’ll be Celtic.- she might start sentences with “see” especially if she’s asking a question or explaining something, or “here”, kind of as a way to get everybody’s attention. Also, when asking a question, she might ask “how” instead of “why”.- she may be more cautious with her money. Scots aren’t tight, but we don’t like to waste money. It will be simple things, like bring lunch from home or mending clothes rather than throwing them out, just the average stuff you do to save money, and generally we don’t waste money on status symbols - if we buy an expensive car or a big house, it’s because we wanted it, not to show off how much we have. - she’ll lament the lack of good Scottish food that she’s used to back home - square sausage, potato scones, Scotch pies, Irn Bru - and if she can, she’ll buy them by the barrel-full.

When it comes to food, Scots love our home cooking, so when she has time she might make soup, stew, or stovies (which is like a stew made of potatoes, onions, carrots and usually beef), or sweets like tablet, cakes, biscuits, or shortbread - and she’ll make loads, and probably offer some to her friends.

Scottish people are very patriotic. We are fiercely proud of our country, our culture, our language, our history, and our contributions to the world. And being abroad makes us even more so. Generally, we’re not dicks about it - it’s about how much we love our own country, not how much we hate yours.

Also, we have this word “thrawn” which essentially means we don’t like being told what to do, especially when it comes to politics. We don’t like non-Scots getting involved in our affairs - especially when it comes to the issue of independence. Your character won’t like her American friends making comments on Scottish and even, to an extent, UK politics or culture, regardless of her feelings on the subject.

This is quite a lot information and I think I’ve basically dissected your average Scot, but I think their good things to consider when writing a Scottish character. Hope this helps.

Mod Haggis

I, personally, pronounce scone so that it rhymes with cone, but according to my friends I’m a dirty heathen. It’s more common to hear it pronounced rhyming with ‘gone’ north of the border, but I like to be different.

Mod Haggis

Honestly, I’m not really sure that culinary schools are much of a thing here. I know a few people who have studied and gone on to be chefs, and most of them just went to a standard community college, so it’s likely your character will have done the same. If you’re interested, here’s a webpage that gives more information on becoming a chef in Scotland. It also has resources for many other careers too - www.myworldofwork.co.uk/my-career-options/chef

Signature dishes could literally be anything from any range of world cuisine - particularly Italian or French. If you’re looking for something Scottish however, an obvious choice would be haggis, neeps, and tatties. From a restaurant, this would be served as a haggis tower with whisky sauce.

Other dishes could include Scotch Broth - probably as a starter - smoked salmon (using Scottish salmon of course), Cullen Skink, a soup made with smoked haddock, or for dessert, Cranachan, which is oats with cream and berries. This site has a list of some traditional Scottish recipes www.rampantscotland.com/recipes.

Now for the final part of the your question: would they be bothered by extreme heat or humidity? Yes. Probably. We don’t get a lot of hot weather here. I’m not saying they’ll pass out or die, but it will take some adjustment. And besides that, Scottish people love to complain about the weather. If it’s cold, we complain. If it’s hot, we complain.

Mod Haggis

While they can be cliché, Mc/Mac names are actually really common in Scotland, which is probably why they’re cliché.

Some common traditional, less-cliché Scottish names could include Lamont, Gowan, Mitchell, Paterson, Scott, Campbell, Stewart, Boyd, Ross, Henderson, Wallace (yes, it’s actually quite common), Hamilton, Shaw, Hendry, Ferguson, Reid, Frazer, Craig, Bruce, Douglas, Stirling, Laird, Bowie, and Chisolm.

If you want to avoid a cliché Scottish name, it’s first names that I’d be more worried about. A James McDonald wouldn’t be out of place, but Hamish McLeod might set some eyes to rolling (sorry if there’s any Hamish McLeods reading this!)

Also, a lot of people in Scotland have Irish ancestry, so Irish surnames are really common in Scotland. You’ll find your fair share of O’Briens, O’Neils and Murphys around.

Mod Haggis

Hey Anon,

In the UK we write the date day/month/year, so today’s date would be written 10/06/2017 or 10/06/17.

However, if you’re character moved to the US at such a young age, it is likely he will have picked up on the American. Whether or not he writes with the British or American system is really up to you.

Mod Haggis

As far as it goes in Liverpool, most of us are superstitious, which you can see reflected in Blood Brothers, a play written by Willy Russell set in Liverpool.

Now I can go on and on about the themes and context of this show as I am both a massive literature and theatre nerd but I’ll save you the essay and just paste the lyrics.

‘SHOES UPON THE TABLE 

AN’ A SPIDER’S BEEN KILLED. 

SOMEONE BROKE THE LOOKIN’ GLASS 

A FULL MOON SHININ' 

AN’ THE SALT’S BEEN SPILLED. 

YOU’RE WALKIN’ ON THE PAVEMENT CRACKS’

Yes, its written phonetically in the scouse accent! A fun little detail for you there.

So there’s a few for a start. Putting shoes on the table, killing spiders, breaking mirrors, full moons, spilling salt, et cetera. We also have a magpie superstition where I’m from; if you see one, it’s bad luck but if you see two, it’s good luck. Pretty standard stuff. Some believe in the Friday 13th bad luck too!

There was probably no need for the Blood Brothers reference, but it’s a great play!

Do you mean Hamilton as in the actual person or the musical? Because he’s not much of a big name over here, I don’t even know who’s on the other dollar bills. As for the musical, you could say it’s fairly popular, considering it’s opening in London this year! Hopefully, it’ll gain a little more popularity from the British crowd when that happens!

tag yourself I’m Thayne

According to the BBC, teens aged 16 or 17 can drink beer, wine or cider with a meal if it is bought by an adult and they are with an adult. It is illegal for this age group to drink spirits in pubs even with a meal. It’s also illegal for people under 18 to buy alcohol in a pub, off-licence, shop or elsewhere.

However, when I was around 14, I knew tons of people who had been drunk before by borrowing/stealing alcohol from big brothers/sisters/friends/etc. A common ‘starter’ drink for teens to drink in parks is WKD, but it’s not ver alcoholic.

Myself? No, but lucky for you, Connie, AKA Noodlerella made a video on it! 

(I love her so much ;-;)

However, her school was pretty different, but there’s probably plenty of other Youtube videos!

Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day) and Lent are Christian tradition holidays! Lent is a period of forty days that starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. By doing Lent, Christians recreate Jesus’ sacrifice and journey into the desert for 40 days. Lent is marked by fasting! 

In the olden days, people would only eat one meal a day, and wouldn’t eat any meat or sugary things, etc, but now peeps just give up something like chocolate or video games!

(These are American pancakes, British pancakes are traditionally flatter and thinner!)