I know some of you will think this odd, but as I was writing “Lyon on the Inside” I needed a Scottish term appropriate for the Regency era for what we might nowadays say “kick someone’s ass.” You see, Dragonblade, like other publishers are sensitive to certain words. For example, you will, generally, see me use “arse” instead of a**. Therefore, I got the bright idea that as two Scottish lords [Duncan and Graham] thought that another Scottish lord [Cunningham] required a good thumping that I should seek out an appropriate Scottish phrase. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how one looks upon it, this is what I discovered.

Yes, all these words could be used in Scotland for an actual “butt kicking” experience. These are specifically often Glaswegian, terms for a physical beating, fight, or severe thrashing. Now, whether they are period appropriate or not, I cannot say with any assurance, but I did find them amusing. I hope you will also. Please note that my first instinct was to use “a doing” or “a gubbing”.

• A Skelping: A smack, slap, or spanking, often used in the context of chastisement (e.g., “Ah’ll skelp yer bahookie”).
• A Doing: A beating or being heavily defeated in a fight.
• A Gubbing: To be severely beaten or defeated.
• A Tanning: To thrash or soundly beat someone.
• A Leathering: A severe beating or hiding. 

Additional common Scottish equivalents for a beating include a laldy (or “getting a laldy”), a malky, a hiding, or a belting. 

I was not thinking of using a tawse. For those of you who do not know, the tawse, sometimes formerly spelled taws (the plural of Scots taw, a thong of a whip) is an implement for corporal punishment applied either to the buttocks or the palm of the hand. The tawse is a leather strap that has one end split into one or more prongs. A spanking administered with a tawse is technically known as tawsing, although the terms strapping and belting may be used to describe it. [Unrelated to this meaning, Tawse is also a genealogical branch of the Scottish Clan Farquharson through Clan Mackintosh [as is Craig Ferguson’s character in the Pixar film “Brave.”] The Farquharson clan is also associated with my own MacThomas clan.

The tawse is associated with Scotland, particularly in educational discipline, but it was also used in schools in a few English cities, e.g., Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Liverpool, Manchester and Walsall. In this British educational context, the official name “tawse” was hardly ever used in conversation by either teachers or pupils, who instead referred to it as either the school strap or the belt.