When a woman reports of a lack of scones at a party over a CB radio, her truckie boyfriend declares the situation a ‘scone-void’.

Scone depletion is not something that the average truckie would be concerned with in reality, but in my world, it’s high on their list of priorities, along with trucks and writing priority lists.

This actually happened to me. Well, I wasn’t driving a truck and I didn’t have a CB radio or beard or green cap or purple singlet. My girlfriend at the time was at a catered work function and she texted me to express her disappointment that there were no longer any scones left.

My response was pretty much as per above, apart from the ‘mercy sakes alive’ bit. I’m not even sure what that means but it must be truckie-speak to convey (not convoy) alarm. I may have also added a “10-4 good buddy” for good measure. It had been a while since I had heard the song “Convoy” or seen the movie “Convoy” (featuring the song “Convoy”).

I don’t know that she was suitably impressed but it amused me at the time. I know it should probably be written in two word form as ‘scone void’, but for the purpose of writing it as I believe this truckie would say it (as one word and most likely prolonging the scone part), I’ve incorporated a hyphen.

The cartoon above won’t make as much sense to those who pronounce ‘scone’ as rhyming with ‘cone’ unless they then describe a procession of trucks as a ‘cone-voy’. There is much discrepancy over the pronunciation of ‘scone’, as evidenced by The Goodies episode “Bunfight as the O K Tea Rooms” (see 3:25 – 4:40 in particular).

There is an explanation of the different pronunciations in the Usage section in the scone listing at www.oxforddictionaries.com.

For me, it’s always been ‘scone’ as rhyming with ‘con’, as per ‘convoy’.

Regardless of how it’s pronounced, I doubt C.W. McCall would like to sing about a small cake made from flour and milk (and fruit).