Talk:outwith

Outwith a Scots word?
Should "outwith" not be listed as Scottish English? I'd probably have said that "outwith" was a Scottish English word, with the Scots equivalent being "ootwith". That's how I understand it, anyway... ~lottie icf 22:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is one of those issues around pronunciation and spelling of variants e.g. the word house is obviously a standard English word but in Scots and Geordie its pronounced hoose. This is because in Geordie ou has a oo sound from book. I not so sure about Scots - would you always write house and or hoose? Iwould think the same applied to outwith and ootwith--Williamsayers79 07:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I would put outwith under =English= with the label (Scotland and Northern UK), and have ootwith as the =Scots= version. In practice, there is no standard orthography for Scots, but this is the usual convention these days. Widsith 07:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've just had a chat with a Scottish bloke and he would use ootwith as the Scots spelling. He would also use hoose for the Scots spelling of house also.--Williamsayers79 08:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I've changed this article to English and created a new article ootwith.--Williamsayers79 08:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That's almost right but the actual Scots version is ootwi. I'll move ootwith to that. -- Derek Ross 03:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The Scottish National Dictionary Association gives the spelling of the Scots word as outwith although it is pronouced oot-with or oot-wi depending on the dialect.

This is becoming common in English. I've heard it three times this week on Radio 4 and not by James Naughty. Perhaps through the influence of a largely Scottish Cabinet at Westminster for the past thirteen years. I'm mentioning it in the article but don't know how such notes should be done. Please correct. Phil Last 07:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I amended it to reflect what I wrote above but Widsith has removed it and changed "(Scottish and Northern England; colloq)" into "(now chiefly Scottish, Northern England)". I'm willing to concede that long statements such as my "though increasingly common throughout Britain through Government and broadcast media use during the first decade of the 21st century" are not the rule but as a reader coming newly to this page I should infer from "now chiefly Scottish" that it didn't used to be but now is which is exactly the opposite of the truth. The fact is that it was almost entirely confined to Scotland until a few years ago but is becoming more common throughout Britain. Phil Last 22:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Its only the Scots use the word 'outwith'. To English people it has a funny old fashioned ring to it, with possibly legal overtones. It sounds like someone trying to show off, which very often they are! I've heard it used for almost everything including 'not included' and even 'absent - non-existant'! Funnily enough they dont use 'inwith', not following Chaucers lead on that one. Tony 29 Nov 2010. Keep that word North of the border, its a poorly defined word and folks just stick it in when short of something useful to say. Tony 29 Nov 2010


 * "inwith" isn't used because the use of "within" as a preposition isn't ambiguous, whereas the use of "without" is, and thus can sound slightly strange, i.e. "without the national borders" or "without the lines". That "outwith" isn't redundant is proven fairly comprehensively by the fact virtually no present-day English speaker ever uses the word "without" to mean "outside of", even though that's one of its dictionary definitions.  --Jamieli (talk) 14:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)