Thocht-Polis, by Philip Robinson

  

Funny cow number 22, from FunnyPica.com

Full text of the poem: Thocht-Polis, by Philip Robinson.

1(a) Why was this text created?
  (b) What motivations does the author have for his style choices? (Extent of distinctive Scots vocabulary and grammatical aspects; neologisms and other innovative language use; spelling; distinctive form; imagery.)

Philip Robinson is well-known among modern-day Ulster-Scots enthousiasts, for his novels and poetry in the language and his position on various boards, societies and councils for Ulster-Scots (read more here), and importantly for the extensive Ulster-Scots grammar guide of his hand. As well as two published volumes of poetry he has three poetry weblogs, one for contemporary free-verse, one for humorous poems and one for poetry in traditional stanzas. The wide range of genres and styles suggests Robinson is consciously trying to expand the literary "reach" of the Ulster-Scots language.

He grew up in Boneybefore, which is not far from James Orr's native Ballycarry. His language use is similar to that of Orr, but with considerable differences in spelling and noticeable neologisms here and there. His own spelling is not consistent across or even within the poems.

"Thocht-Polis" is one of the poems in Alang tha Shore (published 2005), and it is also featured on his blog Mair rhymin Ulster-Scotch crack, the one with humourous poems, or as Robinson puts it "writ fur a bit o a lach". It brings opponents of the Ulster-Scots language on stage as "tha Flet-Earth Societie". To them everything is black or white, and hence they cannot understand the Ulster Scots, who fall between two traditions; they are "black and white" at the same time just like the Frisian cows.

Differences in spelling between Orr and Robinson's poems include such common words as the, I and they, spelled in that way by Orr. Robinson spells the article tha, the first person pronoun A and for they he variously uses the' (in "Whit ir the' at?" and "The' lach and rage"), they (in "Whuniver they thegither play", "They cannae thole" and "To bigger beece they turn't"). It isn't entirely clear what the distinction depends on, though most likely the' is the unemphasised version. The verse is written in iambic tetrameter, but the they spelling is variously used in the emphasised and unemphasised positions. The' however is only found in unemphasised positions. The spelling of the word what is not consistent either; in the online version of the poem it is spelt whit thrice and once whut. The version that was reprinted in Frank Ferguson's anthology of Ulster-Scots writing uses whit once, whut twice and once what. In other poems he uses quhit as a spelling too, e.g. in The Gaelic Archipelago.

Where Burns and Orr both use ca'  (for call) and a' (for all), Robinson uses caa and aa. He uses thocht while Orr spells this word thocht and roon where Orr uses roun'. Altogether Robinson uses a lot more spellings that mark the words as distinct from standard English. As said the discussed poems by Burns and Orr were both in relatively "thin" Scots. Yet the poem "Donegore Hill" by Orr which was in thicker Scots still contains the same spellings as "Death and Burial" does, it just contains more Scots words than the latter.

Why might Robinson be using more distinctive spelling? It may be just be an idiosyncratic thing; in an unstandardised language much is allowed. But the distinctiveness of his spelling choices seems to be in line with the general rule that the more suppressed a language group feels about their language use, the more they will try to emphasise the distinctiveness of their language. James Orr was writing before the education laws of the 1830s, with a nationalised corpus which enforced use of standard English in the classroom. These laws contributed a lot to the stigma against the Ulster-Scots language, as children were told from early on that their way of talking was wrong. Indeed Thocht-Polis is railing against the stigma on the language. In Tha Gaelic Archipelago, too, Robinson hints at the stigma in the lines "Ay. / Sorry - Yes. / We'r learnt we maun aye say YES."

The extent of distinctively Scots words in Thocht-Polis, as in ones that do not have a cognate word in English, is actually not that big. Gin is used, ocht, thole and blethers and the expression deil a haet. This is still more sistinctive language than used by other contemporary Ulster Scots poets. Charlie Reynolds in his poem Mae Mither's Tunge uses almost exclusively what John Kirk (2013: 283) terms "grammatical respellings" and "lexical respellings", or words which are part both of Ulster-Scots and English, but which are spelled to indicate the Ulster-Scots pronunciation:

Hae daen haes best tae change oor Tunge
Tae him its worth wus joost lake dung,
It wus English, English moarn til nicht
An oor ain mither tunge wus niver richt.

These poems seem to indicate that the distinctiveness of Ulster Scots from English has decreased considerably since the end of the 18th century, although the amount of distinctive spellings used has increased.


2 How successful was this text in reaching its audience?

Philip Robinson is well-known within the Ulster-Scots community for his efforts to promote the language. Outside of the community however he is hardly known at all. For instance, despite having published four novels and two volumes of poetry, Robinson does not at the time of writing have a page on Wikipedia, in English nor in Scots. Arguably though, his audience is those who are interested in Ulster Scots. A selection of his poetry, like Orr's, has been included in Frank Ferguson's anthology of Ulster-Scots writing.