Words We Use: Dort

The Scots, and the people of the northern shires of England, have a useful word for bad humour, the sulks. The word is dort , and it generally used in the plural.

It is often heard in the phrase to take the dorts ; and for some reason, it is frequently used after the Christian names of women. "These are the keys then, Myrsie dorts," wrote Sir Walter Scott in The Monastery (1820); and in St Ronan (1824) he has "Meg Dorts, as she was termed on account of her refractory humours."

The Ayrshireman Galt, in Lairds (1826), wrote: "I said, 'E'en's ye like, Meg Dorts' and with a flourish on my heel I left her to tune her pipes alane." The Lanarkshire poet Motherwell, who flourished around 1827, has "My father says I'm in a pet, my mither jeers at me, And bans me for a dautit wean [stupid child] In dorts for aye to be.' And there is the adjective, which means sulky, pettish. "Awake, and dinna be sae dort, What tho' ye get nae siller for't," is from
Webster's Rhymes of 1835.

The verb dort means to sulk, be offended. A minor poet named Shirrefs, writing in 1790, gave this advice about dealing with women: "They maun be toyed wi' and sported, Or else ye're sure to find them dorted." And Douglas, a Fifeshire poet, wrote in 1806, "Like harmless lambs about their dams, They dinna dort nor weary." Hence dortid, stupefied, and the noun dorting , sulkiness, bad humour. Douglas again: "Dancin' on the flow'ry mead, They hae nae spleen nor dortin."

The word is of obscure origin. Dort, to sulk, is found in Old Scots in 1620 and dorts (take the) , is from c.1637. The derivatives dortie was recorded c.1590 and dortynes in 1513.

Dorty is a word also found in Scotland and in England's North Country, and means spoilt, pettish, saucy, contemptuous, proud, haughty, conceited, according to the English Dialect Dictionary . Burness, a late 18th-century Scots poet, complained that "My Muse will nae assist me langer, The dorty jade sometimes does anger." A far better poet, Burns, wrote in Author's Cry : "Then, though a Minister grow dorty, An' kick your place, Ye'll snap your fingers, poor an' hearty, Before his face." Hence dorty-pouch , a saucy person.

Used of plants, the word means so delicate as not to grow but in certain favourable soils or exposures. "Flowers are dorty things, and where one least expects it they flourish," wrote the Scotsman Keith in Bonnie Lady , in 1897.