"I'm aye to get ma messages...." Where did the term messages come from?

Having all kind of debates in the work van about the origin of the Scottish term "messages" meaning shopping.

I've heard it all ma life and just thought it was normal. But apparently folk from other parts of Scotland have never heard of it and think it's a crazy thing to say......

Thoughts please

 

Messages and having a piece

 

I assumed it was because you went to the shop with a message from your maw back in the day?


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I never understood when she'd ask for her change back. No my fault she sent me as a kid to the shop filled with sweets

 

You literally got the "grocery list" wrote as a message/messages on a bit a paper when you were sent to the shoaps.

Therefore, am away for "the messages".

An aul scottish thing/s that still bamboozles me to this day are as follows:

- "Mad as a brush".....dafuq's mad aboot a brush?

"Moan ben"......as in, "moan ben intae the livingroom", translated as come on through to the living room, or other room of choice.

 

Delivery fee that is.

Never send a kid to the shop and expect the change back, at least not the right change.

100% sweets are being munched on the way back.

Always questionable when an item isn't at the shop, yet the change still doesn't add up.

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Mad/daft as a brush I assumed was you'd have to be daft to be a brush and be sweeping up rubbish all day.
So it's calling a brush daft and giving it a personality (there's a better word for that, when an inanimate object gets described as being alive).

The other one, never heard before.
But there's a fair few sayings I believe have skipped me by over the years.

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That's where I thought it came from too.

 

Mon ' ben to the scullery, take the washin' cloot fae the loaby press

 

It's not a scottish saying,

But....fit as a fiddle....

Fiddles must have been fit back in the day

 

Feel like I'm being a mad party pooper coming up with sensible answers here

Back in the day, fiddles would he used all the time, so they'd need to be "fit" to be played.
Also, the fiddler (no laughing at the back) would have to walk the entire day and I guess would have been one of the fittest in the village for it.

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Ah the auld tongue, we shouldnae let it die.


Am awa dayin th' messages fur ma maw.
We hivnae git ony dosh, sae it wull hiv tae be oan tick.
The butcher said if ye dinnae pay th' bill neist week, the'll be nae mare tick fur ye

 

Aye - that's what I think too. And for context, I'm 61.

 

It could be to do with the grocery list but I never thought that.

I always thought it was a hangover from when people used to do loads of errands when they would go out, of which food shopping was only one. So things like paying debts, picking up post and generally finding out what was going on.

Then over time as supermarkets came in it became more and more associated with the food shopping.

I feel like when I was young going to get ‘the messages’ kinda implied a big shop at least, and any other jobs needing done. If you were just doing a small shop and nothing else you would say something like, ‘jumping out to the shops’.

 

A messenger was sent to get the messages

 

I remember when I was wee and u asked your granny, "where's ma maw?".......sometimes you got telt....."she's away a message....".......meaning some secretive business that was big people's stuff and nothing to do with you.


Similar to....

"Stop that, here comes the man!...."

Referring to the secretive and mythical 'man' that was always around when yer maw and auntie are out shopping...and was going to get u and put u oot the shop if u were being a wee *...

I'm still scared of that guy....whoever he is....

 

Same in belfast!

 

In Port Glasgow/Greenock ‘the van’ (ice cream van) - gets called ‘the tally’ not 100% sure but think it might be because back in day a lot of Italians ran them at one point? Fucknows.

 

I can't say it was that bad lol!

In Belfast in the 80s the man would actually get u...and intern you without charge....and smash the virgin mary ornament on the mantel piece in yer ma's house....

The man over here just put u out the shop

 

aye our local van was run for years by an Italian who loved swearing in Italian, can't get over the things you could buy from the ice cream van including *, women's tights dugfood and loads more