Scottish word of the day: Skelp
A somewhat onomatopoeic word that once put the fear of God into misbehaving children across Scotland, a skelp means to beat or to slap.
Widespread among hacked-off parents of yesteryear, use of the term was never far away from a threat to a son or daughter’s hindquarters.
Indeed, a skelped bum was rivalled only by a trip to the dentist or a Monday morning on the list of things children dreaded most.
Skelp is also a term used in metallurgy to describe a sheet of plate metal rolled into a tube.
We can only urge parents not to conflate the two. Ever.