Useful Scots word: sumph

By Betty Kirkpatrick

English has a great many words for a stupid person. It has, for example, fool, idiot, nitwit, numskull, nincompoop, dolt, dope, clot, twit and airhead. Scots, however, can trump all of these with sumph, which is pronounced to rhyme with bumf. One dictionary states that sumph is used mostly of men. Could this suggest that fools or nitwits are mainly men? Surely not. That would be sexist. In any case, there must be female fools in existence, because sumph used to have the feminine form sumphess. Sadly, because I quite like it, sumphess has vanished from use. As well as referring to a stupid person or to someone who is generally useless, sumph can be used to mean a surly or sullen person. This use seems to me to be particularly descriptive.

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Sumph, which is of uncertain origin, can also act as a verb, although this use is not now nearly as common as the noun use. The verb means to act in a foolish, stupid way without thinking ahead. It can also mean to loaf or lie about doing nothing, or to be in a sullen sulk. Basically, the verb describes the way sumphish or sumphy people are likely to act. Sumph is enough of an insult on its own, but often users feel the need to add an adjective to it for emphasis. They often refer to a great sumph, a big sumph or a muckle sumph, these expressions all meaning the same. Curiously, there do not seem to be many little sumphs or wee sumphs around. Most insulting of all is the expression donnert sumph. Donnert is an adjective meaning very stupid and so a donnert sumph is the ultimate in idiots. Donnert is pronounced as it is spelt with the emphasis on the first syllable and is derived from the verb donner meaning to daze or stun. Donnert, thus, literally means having been dazed or stunned. Donnert is not joined at the hip to sumph. It can stand alone and is often used to describe someone who is getting on a bit and whose mind is not as sharp as it once was. Donnert refers to that stage in life when the senior moments get closer and closer together. It sounds kinder than many of its English equivalents such as loopy or batty, and is certainly a lot less harsh than demented.

Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.

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