Criffins, Criftens, Crifty’, Scottish National Dictionary, Dictionary of the Scots Language https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/criffins (Consulted 19 October 2020). Jings! That wis a narrow escape!” 13 The exclamation slips out of Wullie’s mouth quite frequently. Needless to say, Wullie has sometimes been criticised for using the swear word jings. In a story from 1948, 14 Wullie’s mother scolds her son rather harshly, saying: “I’m fed up hearin’ you say ‘jings’ and ‘crivvens’ – jings, it’s awfy language – how can ye no try tae stop it?”

Sandy Hobbs, ‘Oor Wullie Goes to School: A First Look’. Microfilm. Paisley Coll. of Technology, Renfrewshire (Scotland). Dept. of Applied Social Studies, 1987.

jings’, Macquarie Dictionary https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/jings/The%20Riverina/ (Consulted 19 October 2020). Everybody knows Oor Wullie – Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A’body’s Wullie! This is the well-known tagline on the cover of every annual collection of the Oor Wullie comic strips. Wullie, the fair-haired eight- or nine-year-old boy who lives in the fictitious Scottish town of Auchenshoogle, is the hero of many hilarious situations, getting into trouble with the authorities as he goes to school or church. With its nostalgic “Scotticized” language – and outfits – one simply must like Wullie. And this is the way it has been now for a remarkably long time.

jingo, A. int. and n.’ , Oxford English Dictionary https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/101343?redirectedFrom=by+jingo#eid40393170(Consulted 19 October 2020). Starting in 1940 the Oor Wullie strips also appeared in the form of a Christmas annual which alternated every second year with “ The Broons”, another D. C. Thomson product. (No annuals were published between 1943 and 1946.) Pre-1966 annuals were undated.With time, the Scottishness of Oor Wullie so very prominent in the earlier issues has been toned down in the more recent issues. This, however, does not mean that Oor Wullie has become less interesting or that it is not just as playful today – with new digital means of communication. Hobbs, S., ‘Oor Wullie Goes to School: A First Look’. Microfilm. Paisley Coll. of Technology, Renfrewshire (Scotland). Dept. of Applied Social Studies, 1987. For the early Oor Wullie comics, the use of the word ony was very typical. In fact, the first story (from March 8, 1936) both began and ended with We never get ony fun here; as for the next two stories (March 15 and March 22, 1936), we find this famous catch phrase only at the end (although without “here” as the last word). Ony also occurs in other Oor Wullie stories. Indeed, in a corpus of nearly 230 Oor Wullie stories, dated between 1936 and 2004, the expression ony occurs fifty-seven times, with forty-two times alone in the first thirty-four years of the comic strip’s publication.

According to the Scottish National Dictionary, jings is a ‘mild expletive’. 15 Its English equivalent would be ( by) jingo. 16 Furthermore, the Oxford English Dictionary explains high jingo! as ‘a piece of conjuror’s gibberish’. 17 Very similar to Oor Wullie’s use of the expression, the Oxford English Dictionary records that by jingorelates to the French par Dieu, meaning “by God”. 18 The occurrence of the word in the expression high jingo can be proven as early as the late seventeenth century (1670, to be precise). 19 The Oxford English Dictionary also states that jings apparently was a sacred name which may have been introduced to the English and the Scottish language through Basque sailors. Jinko, Jainko ( Yinko, Yainko), Jincoa and Jaincoa are Basque spellings of references to God. 20 In another context, in the Russian war against the Turks in 1878, the Russian tendency to feel superior was sometimes described as jingoism. Likewise, still today, jingoism refers to a “mood of inflated patriotism”. 21 Oor Wullie, in The Sunday Post. Dundee: D. C. Thomson. Issues of 8 March 1936, 15 March 1936, 22 March 1936, 20 February 1944. The retired Royal Mail worker was regularly bought Oor Wullie and The Broons at Christmas in his youth but started to seriously hunt down complete collections in his early twenties.The first Oor Wullie comic strip was published in the Sunday Post on March 8, 1936. Since then, these comics have been printed every weekend as part of the Sunday Post’s Fun Section and again at the end of the year in annuals. From 1940 to 2015, these were published every other year, alternating with The Broons, a comic strip about a Scottish family, and in Special Collections that come out every few years. Fortunately, as its consistently large readership would put it, since 2015 the annuals have been published every year. Axel Koehler, ‘Patricians, Politics and Porridge Olympics – the Scottish Highland Games and the Swiss Unspunnen Festival and the Idea of the Noble Savage’ (p. 33), in International Journal of Ethnosport and Traditional Games, (1)(2019), 32–59.

crivens, int.’ Oxford English Dictionary https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/44613?redirectedFrom=crivens#eid (Consulted 19 October 2020). The not-so-changing face of Oor Wullie on his 80th anniversary". BBC News. 8 March 2016 . Retrieved 27 October 2021. jing, n.’, Scottish National Dictionary, Dictionary of the Scots Language, https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/jing_n1 (Consulted 19 October 2020). Bjørnson, I. H., Michty me, whit are ye gassin’ aboot? The use of Scots in the newspaper comic strips The Broons and Oor Wullie. Master Thesis. English Department, University of Bergen, 2009.

jingoism’, Oxford Reference https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100020889 (Consulted 19 October 2020).