The Glasgow patter is a rich, playful, and ever-developing dialect, known to linguists as West Central Scots, that you’ll hear in and around the city. To the visitor, the accent may at first be a little bit more difficult to understand than its east coast or Edinburgh counterparts, but not to worry: It is still (mostly) English on the page.
That guy over there is steamin’!
Sláinte: “For your health” in several Gaelic languages. Said as a toast or cheers.
Steamin’: Drunk.
Blether: A chat, a conversation
Happenin?: How are you doing? (Don’t pronounce the h.)
Nae bother: No worries, no problem.
That guy is a total bawbag.
Dreich: You’ll hear this a lot when the weather is wet or foul.
Baltic: A way to describe particularly cold and windy weather.
Bawbag: Scrotum, used as a phrase describing someone foolish or irritating.
Taps aff: When it’s sunny and warm enough that people to take their shirts (taps) off. It happens more often than you might think. (Here’s a handy guide to the weather dress code that you can check daily.)