“The deevil’s in the women,” said poor Hobbie; “they would nicker, and laugh, and giggle, if their best friend was lying a corp — and yet I am glad they can keep up their hearts sae weel, poor silly things; but the dirdum fa’s on me, to be sure, and no on them.”
‘And now, Steenie,’ said Sir John, ‘although this vision of yours tend, on the whole, to my father’s credit, as an honest man, that he should, even after his death, desire to see justice done to a poor man like you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make bad constructions upon it, concerning his soul’s health. So, I think, we had better lay the haill dirdum on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir, and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. […]
[…] It's a sore thing to do between such near friends; but if I get the dirdum of this dreadful accident, I'll have to fend for myself, man. Do ye see that?"
1904 — Elinor Macartney Lane, Nancy Stair: A Novel, D. Appleton and Company (1904), Chapter XV:
For myself, I confessed openly then, as I do now, that I found him the most diverting person I have ever met, and took such pleasure in his company that upon me should rest much of the dirdum of having him at Stair.
1919 — J. B. Salmond, My Man Sandy, Sands & Co. (1919), Chapter V:
"But Moses is a fooshinless, hingin'-aboot kind o' a whaup," says I. "The blame's mibby no' a' on ae side o' the hoose. There's lots o' your braw billies ye wudna need to follow ower their ain doorstap. When there's din an' dirt i' the hoose, the wife aye gets the dirdum. Moses has ower muckle to say aboot the wife. She may be ill, but he's no' the pairty to saw't like neep seed ower a' the countryside."
"Troth did I not," answered Moniplies. "I thought to have given my lord's first, as was reason gude; and besides that, it wad have redd the gate for my ain little bill. But what wi' the dirdum an' confusion, an' the loupin here and there of the skeigh brute of a horse, I believe I crammed them baith into his hand cheek-by-jowl, and maybe my ain was bunemost; and say there was aught wrang, I am sure I had a' the fright and a' the risk—"