A house full of bees?

False Friend Alert! Linguistic "false friends" are words or expressions that look or sound similar or the same, but that mean different things. They are particularly common between closely related languages, or languages in close contact with each other. They tend to lead to misunderstandings. There are a number of false friends between Shetland dialect and Standard English. For example:

▪︎ oilcloth = 'linoleum' in StE

▪︎ as = 'than' in StE

▪︎ hugg = 'castrated male sheep' in StE

▪︎ bee = 'fly (small insect)' in StE

To "correct" false friends is misguided. It is simply different words or expressions in two different languages that happen to sound very similar.

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Picture: Alvesgaspar licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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Examples:

▪︎ oilcloth = 'linoleum' (W'ir pickit oilcloth fir da keetchin flør. 'We decided on linoleum for the kitchen floor. ')

▪︎ as = 'than' (Shø's peerier as dee. 'She's smaller than you.')

▪︎ hugg = 'castrated male sheep' (We'll be clippin da huggs damoarn. 'We'll be shearing the castrated males tomorrow.')

▪︎ bee = 'fly (small insect)' (De wir dat mony peerie bees aboot da cake. 'There were just so many little flies around the cake.')