Scottish stuff

[Tara]

I just wanted to ask littlepea (or anyone who may know) some random questions.

I've noticed in your post about your dream, littlepea, that you kept refering to a "flatmate" I assume that's you're roomate? Are there any more terms that you use that we U.S. folk don't use?

That's all I could think of for now. (I had another question, but I forgot )

[littlepea]

i guess so, but i don't call him my room mate cos we have separate rooms

often i mention something in my messages and then ask if you have them in america, though i'm sure half the time you think it's a really stupid question - be patient with me, i've only been to the US on holiday twice

anyway, americans can be just as bad, i heard from a guy who was once asked by an american whether we had cows in Scotland ... cows!!!

there's the usual british stuff, as well:
lift = elevator
chips = french fries
bum = ass
fanny = snatch
arse = ass


we drive on the left, of course, which means the driver seats are on the right and almost all the cars are manual transmission (gear shift) which has to be done with your left hand. it's easy enough, though. also, we have different driving licenses for manual and automatic transmissions - if you learn in an automatic then you can't drive manual transmission cars (which is different from the US, isn't it?)

there's loads of specific stuff that will probably never come up, but if i think i'm saying something that you won't understand then i'll try and clarify

it's good fun seeing how different countries use the english language ... or maybe i'm just a geek with that sort of stuff

[dianaholberg]

You left out football.

[Tara]

With learning how to drive, I don't think there are any specific rules. Of course I drive automatic, however if I wanted to learn standard, I guess I'd have to ask a friend or relative to teach me. But I think when you go for your test....I think they'll let you choose, I'm not exactly sure.

With the driver's side, we're on the left and drive on the right.

And with the word truck (like the pick-up kind) ...don't you call it a van or something or is that in England? I know somewhere in Europe there is a difference.

[littlepea]

you have vans in america, i've seen them use the word on scrubs (eg. the janitor's van) and they're the same as over here. pick-up trucks aren't vans at least, i think we call them pick-ups as well, though they aren't very common.

i did leave out football, well spotted, i've been trying to cut down on how much i talk about it, it just slipped my mind

also, what you folks call "apartments", they're what we call "flats". like the apartments that the people live in in Friends, we'd call that a flat. legally they are known as tenements, but most people just call them flats.

it's not just houses that are all on one-level, though, if it's a detatched house on one level then that's a bungalow

also, do you have caravans? you might call them trailers, but i dunno if they're the same thing.

[Tara]

littlepea said:

the teachers in my primary school (school for 4-11 year olds)....

Do they really judge grade-level by age or are those the ages that seem to fall in those grade levels? How is it for you?

[littlepea]

i'm not sure i follow ...

before school you go to "nursery school" (you might call it kindergarten) when you're 3 or something, then you start primary school at 4 or 5 years old.

you do 7 years in primary school, starting in primary 1 going all the way up to primary 7. by now you're aged 11-12 and ready for secondary school (highschool).

now you do at least 4 years to get your "standard grade" qualifications. secondary 1 - secondary 4, that is. standard grades are like o-levels in england and typically you do about 7 of these (maybe less if you're not particularly bright). these are pretty basic qualifications, though, and won't get you into any universities or anything.

in secondary 5 (or "5th year" as people say) you do exams called "highers" which are what the scottish universities are looking for. the top uni courses (law and medicine etc.) want high grades here, usually 4 A's and a B. in my 5th year i did 5 subjects: english, maths, latin, german and physics, and i got straight A's cos school was easy (unlike uni). a lot of people only do 4 highers, though in my school (private school) it was common to do 6 ... i only needed 5, though, and i didn't want to waste time on a 6th in case i found 5 hard enough, so i got the grades and then decided to stretch myself ...

after that you can leave and go to uni or you can choose to stay on for 6th year for whatever reason. i chose to stay on because i was young for my year (i didn't want to start uni at the age of 16). i already had the grades to get into law at my first choice university (edinburgh) so i decided just to go for it and challenge myself, so i took on a very heavy workload worth the equivalent of 7 highers (it's a bit complicated to explain, it's all about points).

some people stay on till 6th year because to get into english universities they want you to have sat english A-level exams. an A-level is worth 2 highers and they were very difficult. you can do half A-levels (known as "As-levels") which are worth the same as a scottish higher. and you can also do scottish "advanced highers" which are worth the same as english a-levels.

what i did in 6th year was: A-level further maths, As-level mechanics maths, Advanced higher latin, higher classical greek and higher music (the a-level is worth 2 highers, the advanced higher is worth 2 highers, the as-level is worth 1 higher, plus the 2 highers = the equivalent of 7 highers ... simple . there's all this calculation because you get points awarded for different grades in different exams and it's the points that count for entrance into university where you've done a mixture of scottish and english qualifications. i got straight A's in that lot as well, by the way (that made me whoppingly over-qualified for virtually any university course, though i wouldn't be able to do medicine or stuff like that because i didn't do chemistry or biology ... makes sense, really)

i think i just realised what you're asking now - generally those are the ages that you start school. if you want to start school at aged 6 they'd probably just put you in a primary 2 class, even if you'd never been to school before, it's not like the P1 pupils are taught anything too taxing ... also, if someone's held back a year (not because they fail the relatively meaningless tests they make you do, just because they are obviously struggling to keep up) then they will be a year older as well.

the english education system is different from the scottish, they have different age groups and more exams before they get to O-levels and stuff ... i don't really know much about the english education system except stuff that politicians moan about on the news.

so that basically sums up the whole of the scottish education system

PS. first of all we say "maths" and not "math" like americans, because of course it is short for "mathematics", not "mathematic"

also, to do law at university you don't need any previous degree, you can do it straight from school (unlike in america?) which is handy because i dunno what i'd do if i weren't doing law. maybe philosophy or something, though it would really just be a waste of time.

[Tara]

littlepea said:

i'm not sure i follow ...

before school you go to "nursery school" (you might call it kindergarten) when you're 3 or something, then you start primary school at 4 or 5 years old.

you do 7 years in primary school, starting in primary 1 going all the way up to primary 7. by now you're aged 11-12 and ready for secondary school (highschool).

Okay that answers my question. Why categorize grades by age instead of simply saying, "6th grade" or something. But I guess people do that here. In order to get into kindergarten, you must be five years old or turn five before the second half of the school year (which starts in January). So if you're turning five in January, you have to wait the next year to start school so that sucks. I started school when I was 4 because my birthday is in October.

[littlepea]

the cut-off point is in march in scotland - either you start primary 1 in august aged 5 or aged 4 as long as you turn 5 before march of the following year. it's a different cut-off in england, which is strange because it means if you move to an english school you might get put back a year just because you're on the other side of the gap.

it's not usually followed very strictly, though, my birthday is right at the end of february so i should have been nearly the youngest in my year each year at school, except in secondary school there were several people with birthdays in june who were younger than me ... strange but true

[littlepea]

well, i changed my avatar to something more interesting and scottish

the flag is a scottish flag of the union of 1707 when Scotland and England united to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain - this was before Ireland was part of the UK so it doesn't have the st patrick's cross one it like the modern Union Jack does (although Southern Ireland no longer is part of the UK, it was once) ... that's the diagonal red cross, by the way.

anyway, the normal union flag (made by the english) had the st george's cross (the horizontal and vertical red stripes on a white background) on top of the st andrew's cross (the white diagonal cross on the blue background). scots didn't like this, so they made their own version with the scottish flag on top of the english, and i think that's cool ;D

also, the words underneath it (my personal text) is Gaelic (the language of the Scottish Highlands and Islands). i can't actually speak gaelic, but there are some gaelic road signs around parts of Scotland saying stuff like "Fáilte gu Grianaig" which means (in this case) "Welcome to Greenock".

"Céad Míle Fáilte" means "a hundred thousand welcomes", apparently, and i thought that was quite nice

just thought i'd keep you updated

PS. the st george's cross is the English flag, the st andrew's cross is the Scottish flag (often called the saltire)

[Tara]

Hey littlepea, that was very thoughtful of you. Now I know a little something new. ;D

[littlepea]

i can't decide whether it's offensive or not - having the scottish flag on top of the english like that (and the irish flag completely gone ... northern irish people might not like that, i dunno). but then, the regular union jack has the english and irish flags on top of the scottish flag yet scots don't normaly find it offensive for that particular reason (i personally find it offensive because it represents a lot of bigotry).

another interesting fact: before the union Scotland and England had their own separate parliaments, so to bring the two countries together each had to pass an Act in the Parliament, so it was the Acts of Union of 1707 that brought us together. the Acts have some reservations about certain things (eg. the Scots kept their own legal system rather than using English law) one of which states that both the Scottish and the English flags had to be represented on the subsequent flag of the union, and that's why the Union Jack looks like it does

(Scotland and England are still separate countries, so they have their own National flags as well, but are also united as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - that's what the Union Jack represents)