I like how ‘boak’ is used like a Chinese word, it’s a verb and a noun all at once.
The most popular use appears to be, “_____ gave me The Boak.”
Here, clearly, it means _____ has given our speaker a feeling of nausea.
You can also say that someone (or yourself) Boaked. I have Boaked many times in my life, most notably in front of the church I used to attend (in the drain, lah, I’m not so disrespectful of other people’s property, even when I’m hammered).
Here is an image of The Boak:
Solomon the tiny turtle drank a lot of Edradour whisky, and it gave him The Boak. He Boaked, and got Boak all over the table.
I’ve never heard of someone Boaking, though.
It's appears like a description of the sound sometimes made during the aforementioned action… like to 'ralph', or to 'barf', to booaaakkkk… ergh!
Hehe. Too true.
I think you’ll be interested to see boak is not slang at all (nor onomatopoeia):
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boak
My family is from Lanarkshire and I heard it a lot in my youth, e.g. “he gives me the dry boaks”.
So…descriptive!
Is it more a Lanarkshire thing than anywhere else in Scotland, David?
I’m thinking you’d say “He’s awa hæn a boak” rather than “He’s awa boakin”
“Hæn a boak” sounds better to my ears.