scaffie

Clipping and suffixation may be integrated with phonological adjustments: thus, as in the case of grippie, phonological rules concerning vowel length are at the basis of the reduplication of <n> in jannie (< janitor) and of the substitution of the voiced fricative /v/ with its voiceless counterpart /f/ in scaffie (< scavenger).

JUNE 23-24: Aberdeen hosts the Traditional Boat Festival, with its own replica of a 19th Century scaffie - fresh from appearing in the Thames Jubilee pageant.

Alex, from Banffshire, built Obair-Na-Ghaol, a replica of a 19th century herring drifter - or "scaffie" - called Gratitude.

Idon't know who's worst - the ignoramuses who dump stained mattresses on the pavement 24-7 in the hope that the magic scaffie fairies will come and secret them away - or the broken promises from the council who ignore the junk until the local Nell Mangle agitates.

Don't blame the councils or lack of scaffies either.

I MAY not be totally enthused by Edinburgh's Hogmanay bash, but I am once again in awe of its binmen and scaffies who yet again had the streets cleared and cleaned before most of the revellers' hangovers had kicked in.

CONGRATS to the Edinburgh scaffies who had the post-match debris around Murrayfield, including the odd fan, cleared up by 8am on Sunday.

Some people dump anything into charity shops, as they just look on us as scaffies.

What we are talking about here is a motorised version of the scaffies' barrow and brush - "sweeping towards the millennium" as its brochure announces.