Scotland's weird words a radge of honour

I've sat through and got totally drawn into Celebrity Big Brother and It's Me or the Dog and I've even found time to watch the new-look Scotland Today with its rather snazzy new set. Well, when I say new set, I think the limited coffers at STV have stretched to an orange desk for Shereen and chums to perch behind.

I've also discovered one of BBC's history programmes that really got me thinking. Balderdash and Piffle is a weekly series which examines the origins of many of our everyday words and recruits the great British public to help them investigate the origins of many of the words included in the Oxford English Dictionary. This week they had Daniella Nardini, actress and member of the Nardini family ice-cream dynasty, investigating the origins of how a "99" ice cream got it's name.

Why, by just sticking a Flake into an everyday cone, does it then become a 99? I always assumed that the 99 was a slightly grander cone, hence the big number. But there's much more to the story than the grandness of the cone. And despite her very best efforts, Daniella never really got to the bottom of it, although she discovered a company which manufactured cones from the 1930s and produced one called a 99. And, apparently, Edinburgh has an even earlier claim - as revealed in the News this week - the Arcari family says they have been selling 99s from 99 Portobello High Street since the 1920s.

The programme also looked into how the "nit nurse" came to be called, a word I have only recently started using for the first time since I used to queue up at primary to get my head fondled in the search for the little parasites. I've started using it again because, having a child of primary school age, the topic of nits is a rather hot one at the school gates, and, these days, nit nurses just aren't around any more. I can tell you, there's no doubt, most parents are all in favour of bringing the nit nurse back.

As well as nit nurse and 99 cones, they also investigated how "nice" came to be. Yup, you're right, this week's letter is the letter N - it's like a grown-up version of Sesame Street.

But it got me thinking about some of MY everyday words and where they come from. One word which I think is unique to this part of the world is "radge". It's a fantastically versatile word that you can, and I often do, use in a whole host of different contexts.

Primarily, it's an abusive word you use to describe someone. It's not the worst thing to be called - I often hear: "Hey Stotty, ya big radge" and normally don't get too offended. A radge can be big, wee, stupid, or whatever, but can also be used as a verb, on the rare occasion that I've lost my temper, it can be described as "going" radge! You can also use it as a noun and even an adverb, when something is just "totally radge!"

But for all the times I've used this particular gem of a word, I've never known where it actually came from. I remember back in school, the definition everyone used to quote was that it actually was a term to describe a "pregnant fish" but I think this is probably most likely to be an urban/ playground myth.

Another recent addition to my vocabulary is "zoomer", as in "you are a complete and utter zoomer". I think that says it all and doesn't need much more explanation.

It's a word I first picked up while sitting through, of all things, a BBC education programme starring Steven McNicol, currently getting rave reviews in Moliere's Tartuffe at the Lyceum. Even with Liz Lochhead's Scots translation, I doubt there will be much call for "zoomer" in this production. Or radge for that matter.

Talking of favourite things involving the dictionary, my favourite piece of trivia is that the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't contain a definition of the word "gullible".

Other dictionaries contain one, but the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't list it. I don't know if it is an oversight but it's definitely not there. If you don't believe me, look it up and see!