Local & Dialect Words

It's a fair cop guv!

Research led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, raises serious concerns about bias in the UK criminal justice system due to negative stereotyping of accents.

These stereotypes, the researchers argue, can affect all parts of the system from arrest to sentencing, and undermine not only suspects and defendants, but also the testimony of witnesses. The study is particularly concerned about accented speakers being incorrectly selected from voice identification parades.

The findings, published in Frontiers in Communication, suggest that despite progress in equality and diversity in some parts of British life, including 'working-class' and regional accents becoming more prominent on television and radio, harmful stereotypes remain.

"Our findings bring into sharp focus the disadvantage that speakers of some accents may still face in the criminal justice system," said lead author, Alice Paver, from the University of Cambridge's Phonetics Laboratory and Jesus College, Cambridge.

"Voices play a powerful role in the criminal justice system and police officers, lawyers and juries are all susceptible to judging voices based on stereotypes, whether they're aware of it or not. As things stand, listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about that."

The researchers, from Cambridge and Nottingham Trent University, asked 180 participants (~50:50 gender split) from across the UK to listen to recordings of ten regionally-accented male voices: Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newcastle and Standard Southern British English (SSBE), also referred to as RP. ...

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-brits-associate-class-accents-criminal.html
 
Just bought a copy, in Edinburgh, of a classic book from my youth, Larn Yersel' Geordie by Scott Dobson.


1737821079094.png
 
I was talking to a Scottish PhD student the other day about the incoming storm, and she said her grandparents on the Isle of Mull were probably "scunnered'. I was delighted to report this to the Teenager, who has a soft spot for the Nac Mac Feegles. The PhD student in question did not have red hair nor blue skin herself, so I presume she's not one of the wee blighters.
 
Dunno if this is true dialect, but here goes:

In the pre-vaccination 1950s when my two older sisters were young children they both had whooping cough. This did of course keep them and our parents up all night.

One of the neighbours banged on our front door in the early to demand my parents stop my sisters barking.

'Barking' seems to have been 'deliberate coughing done with the intention of irritating the neighbours.'
It was of course no such thing: kids don't enjoy coughing.

Many years later when I was ill with a cough my mother dosed me up to stop me barking in case I upset the same neighbour.
Can remember lying prostrate on my side with the bedsheet half-covering my face in the effort to be quiet.

All this sprang to mind last week when both my brother and I had a similarly severe cough.

I sent him this message -
On Monday I coughed so hard at work I thought I'd poo'd myself. Epic barking.

We chuckled and coughed some more.
 
escargot said:
Dunno if this is true dialect, but here goes:

In the pre-vaccination 1950s when my two older sisters were young children they both had whooping cough. This did of course keep them and our parents up all night.

One of the neighbours banged on our front door in the early to demand my parents stop my sisters barking.

'Barking' seems to have been 'deliberate coughing done with the intention of irritating the neighbours.'
It was of course no such thing: kids don't enjoy coughing.

Many years later when I was ill with a cough my mother dosed me up to stop me barking in case I upset the same neighbour.
Can remember lying prostrate on my side with the bedsheet half-covering my face in the effort to be quiet.

All this sprang to mind last week when both my brother and I had a similarly severe cough.

I sent him this message -
On Monday I coughed so hard at work I thought I'd poo'd myself. Epic barking.

We chuckled and coughed some more.
Click to expand...
I have heard of "a barking cough". It's very rough and hard coughing and can sound like a dog barking (though I think it sounds more like a seal).
 
bugmum said:
I was talking to a Scottish PhD student the other day about the incoming storm, and she said her grandparents on the Isle of Mull were probably "scunnered'. I was delighted to report this to the Teenager, who has a soft spot for the Nac Mac Feegles. The PhD student in question did not have red hair nor blue skin herself, so I presume she's not one of the wee blighters.
Click to expand...
I’d suggest a Broons or Oor Wullie annual as a present for next xmas then.
 
brownmane said:
I have heard of "a barking cough". It's very rough and hard coughing and can sound like a dog barking (though I think it sounds more like a seal).'
Click to expand...
Croup sounds like a seal. Horrible sound.
bugmum said:
I was talking to a Scottish PhD student the other day about the incoming storm, and she said her grandparents on the Isle of Mull were probably "scunnered'. I was delighted to report this to the Teenager, who has a soft spot for the Nac Mac Feegles. The PhD student in question did not have red hair nor blue skin herself, so I presume she's not one of the wee blighters.
Click to expand...
People are 'scunnered' here in North Yorkshire too. But we do share quite a lot of dialect with the Scots, bairns and weans and all that.
 
brownmane said:
I have heard of "a barking cough". It's very rough and hard coughing and can sound like a dog barking (though I think it sounds more like a seal).
Click to expand...
Yup, there are varieties of tussis and I'd certainly recognise a 'barking' cough. Had one myself this last week or so.

The barking though, it implied deliberate or exaggerated coughing done by children to provoke adults.
Can remember kids being told off for it at school. At a time when smoking was permitted more or less everywhere and our own classrooms were polluted by industrial grit and smoke.
 
escargot said:
Yup, there are varieties of tussis and I'd certainly recognise a 'barking' cough. Had one myself this last week or so.

The barking though, it implied deliberate or exaggerated coughing done by children to provoke adults.
Can remember kids being told off for it at school. At a time when smoking was permitted more or less everywhere and our own classrooms were polluted by industrial grit and smoke.
Click to expand...
I have a nephew who coughs like that. I personally think it's partly learned behavior, and sometimes the result of the individual just.... having a habit that's not good.
 
escargot said:
Yup, there are varieties of tussis and I'd certainly recognise a 'barking' cough. Had one myself this last week or so.

The barking though, it implied deliberate or exaggerated coughing done by children to provoke adults.
Can remember kids being told off for it at school. At a time when smoking was permitted more or less everywhere and our own classrooms were polluted by industrial grit and smoke.
Click to expand...
And we have Barkers who call out to attract customers.

Tinker from Lovejoy was one - in this case, a person who bids for another at an auction.
 
Floyd said:
And we have Barkers who call out to attract customers.

Tinker from Lovejoy was one - in this case, a person who bids for another at an auction.
Click to expand...
We kids weren't being accused of that! :chuckle:

It was more about children being seen and not heard. We were supposed to choke to death rather than disturb adults.
 
marhawkman said:
As an uncle, I feel this often. It's like... why are you making random noise????? My nephew just likes making noise.... just to make noise.
Click to expand...
That's normal and healthy. For example, Nephew might be enacting an airliner flight or riding an imaginary horse. Sound effects are essential.
All kids do this.
 
escargot said:
That's normal and healthy. For example, Nephew might be enacting an airliner flight or riding an imaginary horse. Sound effects are essential.
All kids do this.
Click to expand...
Not just kids... when I bring the long line of trolleys in from outside at work, I feel obliged to make the 'screeching tyres' noises. Just because the trolleys don't make that noise, that's no excuse to not make an entrance, right?
 
I was just thinking t'other day, I haven't heard the word "gollop" in years. It's what my dad used to say if you ate something too fast: "You're golloping that down". It is such a distant memory, I just went to look it up in case it was one of those "family" words, like some families have their own internal dialect words that mean nothing to anyone else, sometimes totally made up words. But apparently, golloping was an actual word, not some of my dad's weird Leeds backstreets stuff. He came from Leeds but his dialect was slightly affected by his grandad's Lancashire accent - family originally came from Barnoldswick which has been in both Yorks and Lancs but to Yorkshirefolk that accent sounds more Lancs. So my dad had a few weird words. At the same time, he had what other people called a "Harrogate" Yorkshire accent so it was Yorkshire But Posh.

Mum, a farmer's daughter from the borders of East/West Riding, had an accent - well, full on dialect - that was more East Yorkshire sounding. So my parents although they both had Yorkshire accents had quite different accents to eachother. And if I heard dad use a word but not mum always assumed it was his weird Leeds/Barnoldswick mash-up. Or even made up entirely because he did that, too. If someone was being a big baby about something (me whingeing, usually) he'd say "Iddy, widdy, woddy". WTF did that even mean? I grew up only 5 miles from the village where mum grew up and those 2 villages had entirely different accents, too. Although you can only detect it in people over the age of 60, now. I could tell you if someone came from 5 miles away by the way they spoke. As could we all. I don't exaggerate when I say because the 2 villages loathed eachother, that different accent started fights.
 
marhawkman said:
I have a nephew who coughs like that. I personally think it's partly learned behavior, and sometimes the result of the individual just.... having a habit that's not good.
Click to expand...
One of my kids sneezes so loud, he was actually asked at high school to try not to sneeze during exams. There's something terrifying about his sneeze. Dog is the same. I've never had a dog who sneezes so loud you think their head's gonna fly off, til we had this dog. My son is a bit of a drama queen so people think he does it for attention but he's done it since he was a baby. I hate his sneezes, they make you jump out of your skin.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
One of my kids sneezes so loud, he was actually asked at high school to try not to sneeze during exams. There's something terrifying about his sneeze. Dog is the same. I've never had a dog who sneezes so loud you think their head's gonna fly off, til we had this dog. My son is a bit of a drama queen so people think he does it for attention but he's done it since he was a baby. I hate his sneezes, they make you jump out of your skin.
Click to expand...
One of my fondest memories of my dad is him taking me to the cinema (I was in my teens) and there being a quiet moment in the film when my dad sneezed. He had an almighty 'WAAAAFFFFFOOOOO!' of a sneeze, and immediately after it all I could hear was the flollop of all the flip up cinema seats going up and back down as everyone jumped.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
I was just thinking t'other day, I haven't heard the word "gollop" in years. It's what my dad used to say if you ate something too fast: "You're golloping that down". It is such a distant memory, I just went to look it up in case it was one of those "family" words, like some families have their own internal dialect words that mean nothing to anyone else, sometimes totally made up words. But apparently, golloping was an actual word, not some of my dad's weird Leeds backstreets stuff. He came from Leeds but his dialect was slightly affected by his grandad's Lancashire accent - family originally came from Barnoldswick which has been in both Yorks and Lancs but to Yorkshirefolk that accent sounds more Lancs. So my dad had a few weird words. At the same time, he had what other people called a "Harrogate" Yorkshire accent so it was Yorkshire But Posh.

Mum, a farmer's daughter from the borders of East/West Riding, had an accent - well, full on dialect - that was more East Yorkshire sounding. So my parents although they both had Yorkshire accents had quite different accents to eachother. And if I heard dad use a word but not mum always assumed it was his weird Leeds/Barnoldswick mash-up. Or even made up entirely because he did that, too. If someone was being a big baby about something (me whingeing, usually) he'd say "Iddy, widdy, woddy". WTF did that even mean? I grew up only 5 miles from the village where mum grew up and those 2 villages had entirely different accents, too. Although you can only detect it in people over the age of 60, now. I could tell you if someone came from 5 miles away by the way they spoke. As could we all. I don't exaggerate when I say because the 2 villages loathed eachother, that different accent started fights.
Click to expand...
I remember golloping but would never have thought of it unless you'd mentioned it.
 
catseye said:
Not just kids... when I bring the long line of trolleys in from outside at work, I feel obliged to make the 'screeching tyres' noises. Just because the trolleys don't make that noise, that's no excuse to not make an entrance, right?
Click to expand...
Ummmm. Ok, I have a confession. I make sound effects for one of the people I support when I am lifting her in her lift. Or other times, just because.

I'm sure she appreciates it:rolleyes:. She doesn't speak, so can't make any comment.
 
FunkyTT said:
Your ex sounds like a tosser.
Click to expand...
He was indeed. Well still is, not ever so nasty as such but has this way of making you feel irrelevant. A friend once commented about him 'he just doesn't allow you your area of expertise.' It did nothing for my sense of self worth as when you are in the situation you can't see it for what it is. Should have left him years before I did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top