Colloquialism in use at the
University of Edinburgh to describe a particular sort of nineties (or even
post-nineties) version of the
yuppie wannabe. These days, everyone has a
mobile phone, but only
yahs manage to use them in that ridiculously annoying
Dom Joly manner.
The word Yah is supposedly derived from their habit of saying "Yah", instead of "yes" like normal people. Think Absolutely Fabulous ("sweetie, dahling, mwah! mwah!") and you've got it about right. However, most Yahs tend not to actually say "Yah", but the point is that upon meeting one you can quite easily imagine them doing so.
Yahs tend to hang out at Native State, the Liquid Rooms, or the Bongo Club, and were all singularly pissed off when Cafe Graffiti closed down. Most are arts students (don't get me started) reading English literature or some other totally worthless subject, getting one of those degree things before they go and work at daddy's company.
Yahs have lots of money and tend to live in New Town. They are almost universally reviled by scientists at Edinburgh. Most yahs are, of course, from English public schools, and Scots use the word `yah' as another snub against the English. It remains to be seen how much of this is due to the fact that they've got more money than we have.
Female Yahs are usually quite attractive--im my personal opinion, anyway-- if it wasn't for the obnoxious manner and the way they constantly wear pink pashminas. Male yahs usually fall into the category of hulking, rugby-playing, wife-beating tossers, q.v.
Apologies to sockpuppet and anyone else offended by the characterisation (above) of literature as useless. My somewhat laboured prose attempted to convey the perception of yahs from a scientist's point of view (okay, mine), and many scientists (okay, me) consider this to be the case. I haven't been avoiding highly subjective writeups quite enough, have I?...
...but OTOH, at what kind of accident would you hear someone shouting "Help, help, is there someone in the house who can deconstruct Ulysses and relate it to the author's upbringing?"