Tuesday 20 May 2008

Foosty or Gozzy

GB’s friend Fiona, brought up in the Western Isles, commented the other day that something was foosty.
Foosty ?”, I said. “Can I have a translation please?”
It turned out to mean mouldy smelling and, upon checking I found it in the Scottish Vernacular Dictionary - ‘Foosty - Damp, Dark.’
Ann, originally from the Midlands, said she had heard the word - spelled and pronounced “Fusty” - and sure enough that was in a couple of dictionaries - meaning “That which has lost its freshness, stale-smelling, musty, as of a wine-cask; of bread, corn, meat, etc. …”
A new word for me, however you spell it!

No sooner had we resolved the issue of “Foosty” than GB said one of his pictures was “Gozzy”. Now it was Fiona’s turn to request a translation. We hadn’t realised it but gozzy is Scouse and meant nothing to a Hebridean. The two submissions to the Urban Dictionary came from Merseyside:-
Gozzy - To describe an object that is not aligned straight, it is askew.
Gozzy - a person who is cross eyed or has a lazy eye.
We live and learn. Well, we live and sometimes we learn….

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