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Local & Dialect Words

pandacracker said:
Has anyone here heard the phrase "got a face like a smacked arse"?

My mother would use it about somebody who had to do something/be somewhere/be with someone they didn't like and the resulting facial expression.
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I have, but not for a very long time. It used to be a working class expression, at least along the Surrey/Hants border.
 
The expression I'm more familliar with is 'face like a bulldog chewing on a thistle'! Only the bloke I first heard it from, a one time pupil of Egham comp*, would have said 'fistle' lol

*ie he had a working class London accent! There had been enough money to send his older brother to one of the posh Public Schools and he had learned the posh accent approriate to his educational establishment. It was amusing hearing the two of them together and barely believable that they were brothers. However posh bro used said expression in the accent of his more rough and ready brother!
 
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Did anyone else in the UK outside Peterborough call sweets* 'dods'?

As in, 'I'm tekking a trip to Woolies fur a bag o' dods. If you tret me righ' I'd'a gi ya some but it frit me to death when I fount that text and I ent givin' you any dods.'

EDIT: For the confused outside the UK, sweets are various small candies, sometimes in wrappers or packets, or bought from Woolworth's pic n' mix.
 
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PeteByrdie said:
Did anyone else in the UK outside Peterborough call sweets* 'dods'?

As in, 'I'm tekking a trip to Woolies fur a bag o' dods. If you tret me righ' I'd'a gi ya some but it frit me to death when I fount that text and I ent givin' you any dods.'

EDIT: For the confused outside the UK, sweets are various small candies, sometimes in wrappers or packets, or bought from Woolworth's pic n' mix.
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kids in NE England, we called them kets. Never saw it written down. A similar word, same meaning, happens in Taming of the Shrew...

You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.
— Petruchio (2.1.185-193)
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from https://www.bard.org/study-guides/evolving-english-the-taming-of-the-shrew/
 
PeteByrdie said:
Did anyone else in the UK outside Peterborough call sweets* 'dods'?

As in, 'I'm tekking a trip to Woolies fur a bag o' dods. If you tret me righ' I'd'a gi ya some but it frit me to death when I fount that text and I ent givin' you any dods.'

EDIT: For the confused outside the UK, sweets are various small candies, sometimes in wrappers or packets, or bought from Woolworth's pic n' mix.
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I never heard anyone say that when I lived in Peterborough.
 
catseye said:
But a 'pet lip' isn't a verb, it's a description of how someone is looking. Someone would say 'I told her I couldn't go and she got a pet lip on.' It actually seems to be further West towards Manchester that this is common. Or maybe it's just falling out of fashion now.
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Pulling a Pouting face then? :)
 
pandacracker said:
Has anyone here heard the phrase "got a face like a smacked arse"?

My mother would use it about somebody who had to do something/be somewhere/be with someone they didn't like and the resulting facial expression.
Click to expand...
I have heard it, but definitely not a North American saying. We do not use "arse"..
 
I have heard it, but definitely not a North American saying. We do not use "arse"..

Yes I'd noticed @brownmane but everyone seems to have an Ass ... I've often wondered where they are all stabled ... whistle
 
Sollywos said:
I have heard it, but definitely not a North American saying. We do not use "arse"..

Yes I'd noticed @brownmane but everyone seems to have an Ass ... I've often wondered where they are all stabled ... whistle
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Everybody in the US has an ass, but only a few have donkeys. :D
 
catseye said:
Very common round here. See also 'bulldog licking piss off a nettle'.
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Yes it was very common in Shropshire and the west midlands...as was the bulldog one ..... When I started to date a Walsall wench (stand down, it's what they call themselves!!) I quickly noticed that instead of saying SHE in a sentence, as in , she went to the hairdressers, they would say HER , her went to the hairdressers
 
gojiramonkey said:
Yes it was very common in Shropshire and the west midlands...as was the bulldog one ..... When I started to date a Walsall wench (stand down, it's what they call themselves!!) I quickly noticed that instead of saying SHE in a sentence, as in , she went to the hairdressers, they would say HER , her went to the hairdressers
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And having spent some years in the east midlands at uni (NOTTINGHAM UNI REPRESENT!!) and living in derby too , I always thought that ee up mi duck was a purely east midlands thing , but when I moved to Staffordshire, turns out it is a thing here too , especially in the potteries
 
gojiramonkey said:
Yes it was very common in Shropshire and the west midlands...as was the bulldog one ..... When I started to date a Walsall wench (stand down, it's what they call themselves!!) I quickly noticed that instead of saying SHE in a sentence, as in , she went to the hairdressers, they would say HER , her went to the hairdressers
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I've heard that before from midlanders.
 
gojiramonkey said:
And having spent some years in the east midlands at uni (NOTTINGHAM UNI REPRESENT!!) and living in derby too , I always thought that ee up mi duck was a purely east midlands thing , but when I moved to Staffordshire, turns out it is a thing here too , especially in the potteries
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And in Stafford, where I am happy to reside, the accent is pretty much split between folks who have the black country accent and those with the so called clay head potteries twang..... Then there's me... No discernable accent as far as I can tell . I worked with a wonderful man from the potteries for years who once told me , you know I just can't place your accent. I'll take that
 
catseye said:
I've heard that before from midlanders.
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Yes it really threw me off at first .... And that accent can be impenetrable at first, considering they talk so fast and intensely.... I can decipher Geordie, Glaswegian, Cornish, and so on but sometimes that Walsall brogue is baffling, but luckily I found that they will repeat themselves for an entire anecdote if one new person enters the room so eventually you'll get the gist !! And I'm not being snobby, I love the whole thing .... Crazy how the midlands has so many different dialects, black country, Brum , Walsall, east midlands, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Northamptonshire..... A rich tapestry
 
catseye said:
I was thinking this morning about my Mum because I was making a stew. Now, I call the fluffy suet-and-flour (and sometimes herbs or cheese) things that float in a stew 'dumplings'. But I was remembering that my mum used to call them 'doughboys'. As far as I am aware, dumplings is the usual word and you can buy 'dumpling mix' in packets (which is just flour and suet and you add water).

Mum came from Windsor originally - is it a south eastern word? Or did it arise in the family?
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I did notice butchers' shops in Buckley and Mold were selling something like this, a kind of pre-made dumpling, to go with Sunday lunch - and calling them "Flintshire Ducks", because they floated in the gravy, presumably.
 
gojiramonkey said:
Yes it was very common in Shropshire and the west midlands...as was the bulldog one ..... When I started to date a Walsall wench (stand down, it's what they call themselves!!) I quickly noticed that instead of saying SHE in a sentence, as in , she went to the hairdressers, they would say HER , her went to the hairdressers
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Well, my understanding of "wench" in the context of a pejorative... is that it was only seen as derogatory to someone who felt their social status was higher. IE, calling a woman a wench implied she was a commoner.

But in the US no one seems to want to admit to being a "commoner"...
 
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