Creeping Cockney Crud Contaminates Antipatter, Scottie. Beam me up.

"Cockney Creep Puts Paid to the Patter" claimed a not-so-recent headline of The Herald which, I'm guessing, is a conservative Glaschu-upon-Clyde newspaper. At first blush, I assumed some caddish Eastender had wandered far off his turf and had simply brought his creepiness with him, but no, it is rather that The Herald is simply not as fond of using hyphens between combined words as Americans are wont to do, and thus their intended meaning is very different indeed from their actual headline. [Note to Americans who have stumbled across this post, while the words might bear a small resemblance to English, it really isn't.]

When you realize that "Cockney Creep" was really intended as "Cockney-Creep" it will be more apparent that The Herald means to speak here of language adulterations and not rhyming rapists from the Southland. [Note #2 to stumble-upon Americans: "Puts Paid" is something you should just let go of and not try to understand. You will never have occasion to use the term, so no sense learning it.]

What this ado is all about is similar to the ado (adieu?) the French always seem to be making about not letting English (and ESPECIALLY Americanisms, alors) creep into the purity of the French language. Only in Glasgow, the attempt is to keep out OTHER English from THEIR patter, see? You might say (and someone once did) that this is much ado over nothing, but these 'wegians are dead-serious about preserving the purity and primacy of their particular personalized patter. So don't laugh.

At the heart of the problem, it seems, is an old TV sitcom called "The EastEnders" and similar, says The Herald, itself quoting scholarly in-depth linguistic studies done by some university or other, naturally at your taxpaying expense. It seems that by simply watching this foul television product, the impressionistic youth-upon-Clyde have taken to saying things like "Hullawrerr, China" instead of saying the accepted "Wotcher, mite?"

I guess you had to be there.

Well, they claim these are both English, and that one of them is wrong. They claim the creeping slime of the East End is fouling the pure Scots accent of young people living in Glasgow. They do.

Incidentally, have you ever experienced the pleasure of hearing them speak that which they are trying to protect? The pure patter, I mean. Not Scots. Not English. Something from Star Trek's Rigel 7, Scottie.