Dialect expressions

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Fergal Farty on 18/04/2019 16:06:32:

I … moved to Bristol/Somerset many years ago where they have a very particular dialect…

A common mistake made by grockles. Down here us speak proper. Yakki da, och aye the noo, eee ba gum, 'Hev Ewe Gotta Loight Boy' and brass tacks = facts indeed. It's the rest of you spanners wot have dialects!

Common sense innit.

Dave

[Clive IndiaParticipant @cliveindia]

Calling someone un-eppen was popular in Lincolnshire.

Meaning clumsy, breaks anything – my wife is un-eppen.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Posted by Clive India on 19/04/2019 08:36:38:

Calling someone un-eppen was popular in Lincolnshire.

Meaning clumsy, breaks anything – my wife is un-eppen.

Up 'ere in Yorkshire … Cack handed… clumsy/breaks everything

cuddy wifter … left handed

Balm pot… idiot/stupid

George.

[vintage engineerParticipant @vintageengineer]

I still like the cockney insult to call someone a Berk, rhyming slang for Berkeley Hunt!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I am sure this is a dialect word that used to be common in our family – Nottingham parents but my brother, sisters and I are all English Channel coast natives – but I've not heard anywhere else: twitchel.

A twitchel (you'll have to take my word on't spelling) is of course a footpath, but not a roadside pavement. So when at Grandma's in Arnold, if she directed any of us to a small nearby shop it'd be "Cross the road and go through the twitchel" – between two of the houses and gardens.

'

In Settle a couple of years ago I needed to buy a pair of wellies as I'd forgotten to bring a pair. The first shop didn't have any but suggested who might. I confessed being a visitor:

" Ah riiiight! Across main road, down through t' ginnel…. "

I found it. I've been visiting that area for long enough to know some of the glorious Northern English language. I've even found myself using up some constructions, like "were" where "was" is by the book; and "stopping" for staying (overnight). It's helped perhaps by a trace of inherited Notts accent: a twitchel is a path not a parth, and my home's facilities include a bath nor barth.

NB, that "t' " is silent, a sort of glottal stop. In some parts of the North-West, too, it'd be "reet" not that flatter, longer "raiight". In the Tan Hill Inn one night I heard someone ask about turning off the "leets".

Including Norse words: the stream called Fell Beck, on Ingleborough, is directly "Fjell Bekk" in modern Norwegian, meaning "Hill / moor stream."

And is "Aye" (Yes) from still-current Norse "Ja". pron. "ya", perhaps? Aye seems to have tenses, from what I've heard among Northern friends. The Assertive: "Oh Aye!" in response to a comment like, "That were a right good do" – perhaps with the suffix "were that!" for added emphasis. Or the Ruminative: "Aye…", almost a sigh with a slight upwards inflexion, perhaps when considering some sad event: "It were a bad do, that."

A lot of ancient geographical names seem exotic dialect but are really mundane when translated. Norway is full of Bla / Kvitt / Sna Fjells (I can't type the accented 'a' here): almost phonetically Blue / White / Snow Fells. Similarly why do we have at least two River Rivers in England? (Avon = River.)

And the Dorset village, Ryme Intrinseca, sounds right fancy. I don't know the Ryme part but the Latin, Intrinseca, was just a Church property term.

'

These might be family rather than dialect sayings, but asked "Where are we going?" Grandad's common reply was "There and back to see how far it is!". Try to persuade him to go for walk, and if he wasn't feeling up to it, it was "Can't, I've a bone in me leg!"

Told the price of something clearly over-priced or extravagant, Mum would ripost, "Cheap at half the price. We'll have two!".

Once I called round to my Aunt Edie, widow of a Nottingham miner, to find her swaddled in heavy-duty corsetry as she did the washing. "Oooh, Come in! " she said in her rich accent, then as she bustled around to find something to wear on top, "And 'ere's me in me disbuss!"

'

Years ago I knew someone who if asked what he was making would usually reply, "A lay-'ole for a meddler!". Of course it was….

Walking with friends in the Cotswolds one day, we mis-read the map, ended up inadvertently trespassing, and the farmer spotted us. He could have ordered us back but instead directed us onwards across the field "… to the obbley-eyed gate…" We thought it politic not to ask but to discover for ourselves what is an obbley-eyed gate. It's a decrepit, wonky one. Naturally, it'd be right – just needs a bit more universal agricultural fixative, aka binder-twine.

[Colin WhittakerParticipant @colinwhittaker20544]

Not dialect but arabic …

mufta angleezy translates as english key and referred to an adjustable wrench

and I was puzzled why the Fylde school yard slang expression klefted (for steal) was being used by the Omani Bedu as klefty in the expression shufty klefty (see it and steal it) when I was being reminded to close my toolbox. I eventually twigged it was another arabic expression brought back by the British Army from North Africa.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Just catching up with this thread, a "snotgobbler" is, when you think about it, a perfect (albeit disgusting) description for a motorcyclist.

Another Fylde Moss expression is "staunch blobber" – something well-made or sturdy.

"It's black ower Wilf's mother's" was used by my father to indicate impending wet weather. Which reminds me that if you can see Southport, it's going to rain. If you can't see it, it is raining.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

Is mufti such a borrowed expression colin, we used it to indicate wearing non uniform dress in a previous life but mentioning it a couple of years ago would just bring blank stares from the yoof.

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

My engineering jobs sometimes took me from rural Hampshire to other parts of the uk working in factories,sometimes for a week up to two years away. I remember in Hull a cloggie was a Dutchman,a drain was a wide ditch,the ten foot was the wide alleyway (for dustcart access) at the backs of the large houses which had been the up market area in victorian times. In Leicester a tool maker said to me scrappers were thrown in the cut. I had a blank look on my face and he explained scrap workpieces were thrown in the canal. In Grenock a tool maker he was just going down to the buff with some tools,down in my part of the world a buff was a polishing mop,up in Scotland it was a pedestal grinder.

[JonParticipant @jon]

Small fry bought up as a Brummy, moved to Telford and got mixed Liverpudlian/Brummy lingo, then Walsall in the Black Country, then best of all an entirely different language in Sedgley where Gornal was only 1 mile away.
The Gornal language was still pure you would be talking quite normal to some one born and raised there then out the blue throw in "Hes as fat as a Tunkey pig" to "And they'l be putting the pig on the wall to watch the band go by" "I hate you" "I love you"

[Colin WhittakerParticipant @colinwhittaker20544]

To Plasma,

Never heard mufti being used and a quick search reveals that in arabic it refers to a religious authority.

I started work in the Middle East in Oman and rapidly learned that learning Arabic in Oman would be like learning English in Glasgow. At the end of two years I would occasionally translate Omani Arabic into English for Egyptian Engineers who couldn't understand it themselves.

Working in Syria on an American oil rig I was regularly called upon to translate Yorkshire English from Hull for an American Company Man. That was bizarre.

Bint (a woman) is arabic. Chai (tea) is arabic. But I can't think of any other original loan words I encountered.

[PlasmaParticipant @plasma]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufti_(dress)

This explains mufti, looks like a military appropriation of a word.

We used it to indicate civilian clothing or civvies.

Didnt know bint was a borrowed word, thank you.

Blimey, translating hull into American, who knew lol.

Regards Mick

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Suzy Dent on 'Countdown' does a party piece explaining word origins. 'Couch Potato', meaning a slob sat in front of the telly is of US origin. Early TV's displayed on a Cathode Ray Tube, abbreviated to watching 'the tube'. Therefore a person watching the tube must be a 'tuber', which as we all know is a potato. Odd that 'Couch Potato' caught on in the UK even though the underlying pun didn't cross the Atlantic.

In the US glass electronic vacuum valves are called 'tubes' whereas in the UK we call them 'valves'. Except – unless you know different – British CRTs have never been CRVs.

QI explained that 'ptarmigan' is only spelled that way because the dictionary got it wrong, incorrectly assuming the bird's name was Greek in origin and should be spelt with a silent 'p' as in psychiatrist and pneumatic. Completely wrong, tarmigan isn't Greek. Not only that, but 'p's aren't silent in the original Greek either. You'd have to be puh-sychic to know that…

Dave

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 27/04/2019 09:38:49

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

Here in the US I was a bit startled when a Scottish lady told me to keep my pecker up.

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

John what else could it mean? Don't know that one. Lancaster, Ohio, the other one.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 27/04/2019 09:37:08:

… a silent 'p' as in psychiatrist and pneumatic.

.

… and swimming pool

[Brian OldfordParticipant @brianoldford70365]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 28/04/2019 19:15:28:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 27/04/2019 09:37:08:

… a silent 'p' as in psychiatrist and pneumatic.

.

… and swimming pool

Not silent from the top diving board.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

And pshrimp.

Neil

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