Laldie noun vigour, energy; a thrashing
‘“Och, no. Mam would give me laldy if I just went off wi’ no word. I put a note on my bed.”’ (An Echo in the Bone)
Laldie is one of those rare words that has acquired a more positive meaning over its evolution. The origins are uncertain, though laldie may be connected with an Old English word læl meaning whip or bruise. The word first appears on record in the nineteenth century, often in the context of an impending threat of punishment or violence. A typical example occurs in Henry Johnston’s Glenbuckie (1889): ‘If it had come to the maister’s ears I’m thinking ye would have got laldie’. And also here in Verse and Prose (George Cunningham, 1912): ‘Ye’ll get laldy owre the bum.’ Ouch.
Giving someone or something laldie is the most common usage of laldie today. It describes something done enthusiastically or vigorously, but sometimes not necessarily well. This is perhaps Irvine Welsh’s implication in a short story from Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995): ‘Ah mind ay ma Ma givin it laldy wi this yin. She sang it to me on my birthday.’ More tunefully perhaps, in May 1993 the Aberdeen Press and Journal reported of the Eurovision Song Concert: ‘Tonight’s the night for Europe’s chanteurs and chanteuses to dust out the gargling mugs … and give it laldie in the name of jingle jingoism.’
It can also mean to give something or someone hell. William McIlvanney supplies a succinct example of this in his 1983 novel The Papers of Tony Veitch: ‘... I’m on my way to the chiropodist’s. Ma feet are givin’ me laldy. ...’
That said, it is still possible to find examples of the former sense. In Andrina Connell’s short story, Took Fur a Ride, published in The People’s Friend (1996), we find this mixture: ‘A wunnert if A’d taken wan o thae serialized hemrages. Naw. A reckon it wiznae that. Bit ther wiz a wee man gein it laldy wi a big hammer inside ma heid’.