Anither Ulster-Scotch wurd an yin mair forbye

Today Diarmaid O Muirithe discussed the word next in his Irish Times column Words We Use and to the use of the word in the sense 'in the direction of'.  A scholar from county Down had discovered its use in the Belfast Newsletter of 11 December 1818.  The report stated that a group of magistrates, tired of the shnanigans going on in their district, offered a reward of £50 to anybody who would apprehend a named criminal 'last seen between Saintfield and Everogue's Bridge ... heading next Loughinisland'.  O Muirithe points out that this old usage is of Scots origin.

He also considers the word stravaig, a noun and a verb, which means, 'to wander about aimlessly'.  It is a Scots word, found in the Scottish National Dictionary, and came into Old Scots from the Old French, estravaguer.