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Local & Dialect Words

Some interesting lists on some of the Northern dialects here :)

http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/frame.html
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A lot of it seems quite common. When my wife and I were dicussing slang words from our school days we came up with some common words, the couple I can remember.

goit - Variant of git (precedes usage in Red Dwarf)
wazzick - Idiot or similar

Best one she coined was

Climey - A rash

(Base on Climey Fisher, still understood locally to this day :))
 
'Chunter' and 'canting'.
2 words i love the sound of. :heh:
 
HighAndMighty said:
cost kick a bo' agen' a wo' an' yed it till ye bost it?
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I think you mean:

Can't kick a ball against a wall and head it till you burst it.
 
Speaking as someone who was born (and still lives) within spitting distance of Birmingham (well, not quite, but I've have a good go, all the same), I'd just like to nominate the Brummie dialect as the most stupid in the nation. And don't get me started on the god-awful accent...

Phrases like "Yow car say yow ai 'cos yow bluddy am" are like lost relics of the Industrial Revolution.

The was talk the other year that a well-known toy shop and record shop were thinking about changing the names of their West Midlands branches to, respectively, "Toys Am We" and "Wim Price". All too credible, I'm afraid.

Incidentally, to all folk from Newcastle, "wim" means "wor". I hope that clears up any confusion.

I love people round here, really. It just worries me that, even within a few miles of each other, people can find time to disagree over whether a bread roll is a batch or a cob.
 
Two of the most common expressions from my childhood:

Ah thi laikin?
Ast any spice?

It just worries me that, even within a few miles of each other, people can find time to disagree over whether a bread roll is a batch or a cob.
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This winds me up no end for some reason. Bread rolls almost have ideolect words, never mind dialect. It's like the TV remote control, it's like every family/household has a different word for it. If I had a teacake (yes, teacake, no, it doesn't have fruit in it, that'll be a CURRANT teacake!!! ;) ) for every time I've overheard/been involved in this conversation in the pub I could start a bakery ;)
 
Peripart said:
I love people round here, really. It just worries me that, even within a few miles of each other, people can find time to disagree over whether a bread roll is a batch or a cob.
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Haha! I've heard people at a wake argue about whether the buffet had 'finger rolls' or 'bridge rolls'.
 
_Lizard23_ said:
... If I had a teacake (yes, teacake, no, it doesn't have fruit in it, that'll be a CURRANT teacake!!! ;) ) for every time I've overheard/been involved in this conversation in the pub I could start a bakery ;)
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But teacakes do have fruit in them. Don't they?!?

I was recently involved in some bread-related language difficulties on this very board. The discussion can be found in this rather unappetising thread.

And incidentally, my amdram group is currently doing 'Allo 'Allo, and the script mentions bridge rolls. I wasn't entirely sure what they were. Had it said finger rolls, I would have understood straight away.
 
HighAndMighty said:
liveinabin1:

cost=can you
but other than that 10/10 v.good
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Hubby is from Stafford and recognised it straight away.
He told me what to type, didn't make a scrap of sense to me.
 
_Lizard23_ said:
Two of the most common expressions from my childhood:

Ah thi laikin?
Ast any spice?
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If its the same expression as I was always used to, is 'spice' sweets?

OOoh takes me back. :heh:
 
Peripart said:
I love people round here, really. It just worries me that, even within a few miles of each other, people can find time to disagree over whether a bread roll is a batch or a cob.
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Be grateful you don't have to endure Estuary English accent. In Devon. From locals. I swear sometimes they sound just like Jade Goody.

Nothing against Estuary English, as long as it's in the Estuary. I just hate the way local accents are being swamped by a sort of non-English accent. Sort of bad Mockney or something.

Anyway, I'm from Black Country, an' I ay a Brummie neither. And I love my accent :lol:
 
I'll have to tell you some day of the time I went as a child to visit my relatives in Dumfriesshire and unaccountably forgot what "ken" meant.

On second thoughts, it's too embarrassing.
 
Its amazing how easily accents change....I grew up in Warwickshire and had the lovely not-quite-brummie lilt. (Think the Fast Show's "With an owl!" for a reference point)

However, I moved down south about ten years ago, and when I see me mum and dad they always take the proverbial 'cos they reckon I ask for a "cap a tee" instead of a cup of tea.

Mrs Carlos grew up in Dublin, trained to be a midwife in Stirling, lived in Shepherd's Bush for seven years, worked in Abu Dhabi for four years and then ended-up in Brighton.

Imagine what she sounds like. ;)
 
I know someone who was born in Glasgow, grew up in Newcastle, went to uni in Hull, and then moved down to Berkshire. He has the oddest accent of anyone I know, and many people, wherever they're from, find him incomprehensible.
 
Hi all!

Long time lurker, I used to be when wenshep.

Usually a little too shy to post...

I just wanted to let everyone know that in Ontario, Canada, the little insects that roll up are called "potato bugs". I have never seen them anywhere near a potato, but, nevertheless.
 
i can't believe nobody has chipped in for the Irish, where are you Ramonmercado? my childhood memories are all wrapped up in dialect words.

off the top of my head we have cop, verb and noun. as in "would you ever show some cop?" cop here means sense as in common sense or thereabouts. there's also the oft used "Cop on!" meaning, stop doing that stupid thing, or leave me alone or get a grip, the list is endless.

there's ere for any, "has he ere a bit of cop?" and nere for none, "nere a bit". "divil a bit" also means none.

I still hear myself saying "tay" for tea and my great aunts would say "strame" for stream, "mate" for meat. the children's game of baby house was always "babby house" to us. "don't be at that" don't do that. also "he's a cute hoor" meaning he is an acute whore, a sly b*stard.

but all of these things are dying out here as well.
 
Some of those seem to be more down to pronunciation, rather than being dialect words in themselves. Unless they are actually written differently as well, that is.

I'm sure I must have acquired some Welsh words and phrases from my dad, as well as the Nottingham nonsense from my mum and her family, but I can't actually think of any. Maybe I just don't know they're odd words though.

One thing I've noticed about dialect is that when I come to write the words down, for instance in this thread, I realise that I don't know how to spell them. I wasn't aware of the difference before, but I now realise that I must write in one form of English, and perhaps speak in a slightly different form.
 
Back in the 19th century there was a fashion for "dialect fiction," used primarily for either humorous effect or gritty realism. During the 20th century, this became frowned on, as writers and folks associated with writing (teachers, reviewers, critics, general readers) noticed these things: Most dialect dialog worked if the reader was already familiar with the dialect, but if not, the point was lost along with comprehension and reading pleasure; much dialect writing involved gratuitous misspelling (wuz for was, for example) that made reading harder without conveying any difference in pronunciation; it makes copyediting and proofreading a nightmare; and most dialects and accents can be readily conveyed by constructing sentences in a typical rhythm, using one or two distinctive words, and spelling everything else according to the standards of the market area.

All the same, I just finished reading a book which uses dialect spelling; but David Almond abjured the apostrophe and limited himself largely to modifiers (i.e., bliddy) and words I was familiar with from other sources (i.e., nowt). I never got a clear idea of where the book (Clay) was set but I presume it'd be obvious to a Brit. Only one word really bothered me, because I couldn't quite get it from context. Does "Howay" mean okay, all right, whatever?

New York editors always query regional usages, and sometimes you have to stand up for them, but in America, we're such conformists that most of us talk like the TV anyway. The days when Flannery O'Connor had to communicate with written notes at the University of Iowa because no one could penetrate her south Georgia accent are long gone.
 
PeniG said:
...I just finished reading a book which uses dialect spelling; I never got a clear idea of where the book (Clay) was set but I presume it'd be obvious to a Brit. Only one word really bothered me, because I couldn't quite get it from context. Does "Howay" mean okay, all right, whatever?
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I'm not at all familiar with the book, but that word alone would almost certainly mean it was set in or around Newcastle. As for the meaning, you'd have to ask a Geordie to be sure, but I think you've got the general idea!
 
PeniG said:
...gratuitous misspelling (wuz for was, for example).
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I have to quibble with that: wuz is how the people in the Bristol area pronounce was,
while the rest of us say it more like woz.

And Howay sounds Geordie (NE England), and is a sort of cheering-on word - Howay the Lads! (Can't actually find it in any online dictionary though!)
 
Actually, just found this:
http://www.geordie.co.uk/slang.htm

Loads of stuff there.
One has to remember that Geordie is not, repeat not, a regional accent. It is a language in its own right. It owes a lot to Scandinavian tongues, for the Geordies and the Vikings had much in common. They both liked to chat up each others women folk and burn down monasteries. In fact the Vikings made monastery burning a national sport for the time.
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:D
 
It's a Fortean story, actually - Clay refers to the capacity of one of the characters to make golems. Almond mostly is pretty Fortean. An angel/birdman in Skellig, ghosts in Kit's Wilderness, less definable things in other books. Look in your YA section.

Come to think of it, I believe rooting for Newcastle United was mentioned, but that conveyed as much to me as I'd expect y'all to get from my namechecking the Spurs.
 
hadaway and shite.

I love that phrase. Viz, being printed in Newcastle was always good for Gordie slang. My favourite line being. 'nay one hoys tabs at wa lass'.
 
PeniG said:
It's a Fortean story, actually - Clay refers to the capacity of one of the characters to make golems. Almond mostly is pretty Fortean. An angel/birdman in Skellig, ghosts in Kit's Wilderness, less definable things in other books. Look in your YA section.

Come to think of it, I believe rooting for Newcastle United was mentioned, but that conveyed as much to me as I'd expect y'all to get from my namechecking the Spurs.
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Almond is from the Newcastle area (OK Felling - but that is close enough these days). Howay has many uses, mainly "come-on". Oh howay man (a favoured phrase when things don't work...)
 
PeniG said:
Come to think of it, I believe rooting for Newcastle United was mentioned, but that conveyed as much to me as I'd expect y'all to get from my namechecking the Spurs.
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For a moment, I wondered what you meant there, Peni, since anyone who has heard of Newcastle United is obviously aware of Tottenham Hotspur, too (even a Chelsea fan like me will admit to having heard of them!).

But I then did a quick Google, and I find that there's a team called the San Antonio Spurs. Well I never! They seem to play a game involving tall men in vests jumping at nets - does this passtime have a name at all?
 
Here in Suffolk they use shew and shewed for show and showed. example ' I like that first dress you shewed me'.

Myself and a friend has stopped her boyfriend saying it but now I feel a bit bad about it. It's a local dialect word, should we have let him carry on?
Also Susanna Clarke uses it in her books which she writes in a period dialect.
 
Is it just me, or do other people get annoyed when they hear the 'snobby' types saying glaars instead of glass or graars instead of grass? It just makes me want to shout:

HOW MANY F**KING RS IN GLASS?????

If it was mean to be pronounced like that it would be spelt GLAARS.
Rant over. I thank you. :gaga:
 
witchflame said:
Is it just me, or do other people get annoyed when they hear the 'snobby' types saying glaars instead of glass or graars instead of grass? It just makes me want to shout:

HOW MANY F**KING RS IN GLASS?????

If it was mean to be pronounced like that it would be spelt GLAARS.
Rant over. I thank you.
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Well, clearly, I'm an utter snob, because I tend to pronounce "glass", "grass", "bath" and countless other words in a way that would clearly set your teeth on edge.

But actually, it's nothing to do with being snobby or posh, is it? Not really. When I hear a Liverpudlian say "fur" for "fair", or when Mark Lawrenson on BBC pronounces "moment" as "merment", I don't scream "commoner" or "where's the u in fair?". No, it's just that, depending on where we were born or educated, we pronounce words slightly differently.

By your reckoning, Witchflame, words like "father" would have to be said with a short "a", because after all, it's not spelt "farther". But amazingly, posh, snobby or neither, most of the UK pronounce it that way. In any case, if you look in a dictionary under "glass", you'll find that the recognised pronunciation is as if it contained an extra "r". Mind you, those bloody snobs at Chambers would say that, wouldn't they?

In summary, to quote Michael Winner - "Calm down, dear!" Regional accents aren't there just to annoy you, and people don't speak differently because they're snobs. Really - I'm almost human, as it happens.

Mind you, it does get me annoyed when people pronounce the eighth letter of the alphabet as "haitch". I mean, really annoys me. It just makes me want to shout:

HOW MANY F**KING Hs IN AITCH?????

So, you see, we're not that different, after all!
 
Couldnt agree more peripart.
The last 'H' comment I do agree with.

I think the 'snobby' thing Im talking about is: when people who were never brought up to pronounce things in that way, due to the area they originate, suddenly start talking like a complete tit, and pronouncing things in that way. Thinking it makes them 'posher' and 'less common' than the man next door. A bit hyacinth 'bucket'.

Peripart. You were probably raised in an area where the glass, bath, and grass pronunciation is normally like that. So i dont have much of a issue with that. Its just the complete wazzaks that I know come from 'just down 't road' but insist on such idiocy. Now thats what makes me want to shout at them.

I probably didnt make myself very clear and It sounded like I was yelling about people such as yourself.
:oops:
Sorry.
Witchflame.
 
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