Böcker av Douglas Kynoch

Collated from various sources including Helen Beaton's 1925 At the Back o' Benachie and Professor Alexander Fenton's academic collection of the sayings of Aberdeenshire parishes in the 1950s, Doric Sayings is a cornucopia of Doric wit an wisdom, some of it in the form of rhyme and riddle. Couthie comments about everyday life; caustic remarks about the neighbours; philosophical reflections on work or the weather. Who could fail to be re-assured to know that aathing his an eyn but a mealie pudden his twa?

Though written in the style of foreign language book, Teach Yourself Doric is intended as a work of entertainment, designed to amuse those already familiar with the speech patterns of North-east Doric. Containing study texts and questions for "students" to answer, it is, in fact, a spoof language book. That most readers got the joke was clear from the fact that the book very quickly became a Scottish best-seller; this, despite the efforts of two critics who reviewed it as a teaching manual and a Glasgow bookshop which displayed it in the foreign language section.