Mar 27, 2009
Come again? (or: you wha?)
Reading the G2 guide to regional English dialects at lunchtime (and particularly the A-Z at the end), I found myself pondering how much regional slang and dialect I use, and how perfect it is – I can’t imagine using any other word, in many cases.
This is probably the best side-effect of coming from a pan-Britannic family, having strongly-spoken friends from all over the shop and having lived, studied and worked myself in a dozen (or more) places in the UK for significant amounts of time – long enough, at least, for certain bits of local language to have rubbed off.
So with that in mind, here’s my personal list of word, possibly regional in origin (but not sure where in all cases) which I frequently use in everyday conversation, and which more than once have caused someone to say “you what?”
| Word | Meaning | Origin |
| Aye | Yes | North/ Scotland |
| Backie | Giving someone a lift on your bike seat while you pedal | No idea |
| Bait | Snack or packed lunch | North east |
| Bampot | Idiot | Scotland |
| Barm | Bread roll | North west |
| Beck | Stream | Yorkshire |
| Bimble | Aimless wandering | No idea |
| Blether | Talking (esp at length or stupidly) | No idea |
| Blob | Condom | No idea |
| Bun | Bread roll | North? |
| Butty | Sandwich | North? |
| Clamming | Hungry | North east |
| Clart | Mess or Pain in the arse (e.g. “That’ll be a real clart”) | No idea |
| Gawp | Stare | Scotland? |
| Faff | Muck about/Procrastinate/be a pain in the arse | No idea |
| Ginnel | Alley between two houses (sometimes covered) | Derbyshire |
| Har | Sea-mist | Aberdeen |
| Havers | Nonsense (“you’re talking havers”) | Scotland |
| Kecks | Trousers | North? |
| Kegs | Underwear | North east |
| Lummock | Idiot (dumb, lumbering, clumsy type) | North? |
| Mardy | Grumpy | North west |
| Mazey | Dizzy | Lancashire |
| Midden | Rubbish dump or pile | No idea |
| Outwith | Opposite of “within” | Scotland |
| Pinny | Apron | No idea |
| Pobsy | Sickly-sweet, and in poor taste, like “love is” cartoons and posters featuring puppies with speech-bubbles | No idea |
| Scranchen | The bits of fried batter and ends that you get at the bottom of a bag of chips | North east |
| Spelk | Splinter | North east |
| Spuggy | Sparrow | No idea |
| Wee | Small | Scotland |
What regionally-odd words do you use? Or do you use any other words for these things or ideas?
Don’t get people started on the whole Bun/Cob/Breadcake/Barm/Roll/Bap/Teacake argument!! They differ in different areas – and some are very localised (Breadcake – is Sheffield and not far beyond).
My favourites are ‘snap’ or ‘pack-up’ – pack lunch to take to work.
A lot of these words are used in different corners of the country that you wouldn’t expect. You often have words which are used in the outer regions of rural Scotland but also in urban Norfolk. Often these can be for sociolinguistic and historical reasons.
And in case you didn’t know, the easiest way to distinguish where someone is from (besides very unique lexicon) is the pronunciation of vowels.
The most interesting part of my course by far!
piece | sandwich | scotland
Pretty sure that ‘blether’ is Scottish – I’ve never heard it used anywhere else.
I’m from the Isle of Wight, so there are a couple of obscure dialectal words in my vocab.
Grockle = tourist, so those shops with sunglasses and inflatable crocodiles in are called grockle shops.
Mallyshag means caterpillar. Naturally.
Nipper = young one, I gather this is used more widely.
Skelf, for a splinter, is Scottish. Great word but no one knows what I mean down here in the godless south.
I think blether, midden and pinny are Scottish.
Aye, yes, and faff, bun and wee.
The rest might as well be foreign :)
I consistently use Aye for agreement, that word is definitely a stuck one. As is wee and outwith, although I hadn’t quite realised it was local dialect, makes sense why no-one in the US understood it ;)
Blether is definitely Scottish. Instead of bimble I picked up burrell as a Scottish word for going for a wander. Other Scottish words I use is stay instead of live, as in ‘where do you stay’; close instead of ginnel and messages instead of shopping.
Words I use occasionally from the Black Country, where i grew up, include saft (meaning stupid), ockerd (awkward), bonk (hill), thrape (thrash) and ‘bist fit’ for ‘are you ready’. Although almost all of these are now confined to just thoughts and rarely make it to words
Pinny is short for pinnafore, something that was pinned to the front of a dress to protect it. It’s used all over the place.
Jockey or Mon are both used to mean friend in bits of Shropshire. So you’re likely to hear things like ‘ow bist mon’ or ‘Ow ya keeping jockey’
And on the bread roll front… they’re called batches in Coventry
Odd, this came up in a conversation on Thursday. I used the word “mardy”, to the utter bemusement of a Kentish friend.
From your list, the only other words I might occasionally use would be faff and gawp, but probably not very often. I’d use butty specifically for bacon or chip butties, but not for sandwiches in general.
From my Nottingham upbringing, I remember – but would no longer use – cob (bread roll), snap (packed lunch), sucker (ice lolly), tuffee (not entirely sure about spelling, this meant sweets in general, not just toffee, and was pronounced “tuff-EH”), twitchel (passageway or alleyway).
Getting a lift on the back of someone’s bike (you sat on the seat, they stood while pedalling) was a croggie. To be left-handed was to be cack-handed. Making tea was mashing. Someone who was ill was badly. Ears were tabs. Something that was cool was sound (or if very cool, sound as a pound).
Owt (anything) and nowt (nothing) were in common usage, but pronounced to rhyme with “oat” unlike further north. Being agitated, anxious and a bit moany was mithering (with a long i) or wittling (short i). Someone who was annoyed had “a strop on” (as in “stroppy”) or “a cob on”.
I remember my grandma telling me that she always sorted her bank notes neatly in her purse: “I ‘ate to see ‘em all ockerd.” Friends from the predominantly working-class village where I went to school would say “gi’ us a gozz at that” when they wanted to look at something, or “stop gozzin at meh” if you were staring.
Everyone was referred to as duck or “mi duck”, male or female. This sounds camp to outsiders, but was originally a term of respect based on “my duke”. A bit like southerners calling someone “squire”. Older people would also use siree, pronounced “serry”.
The Mrs, from Northern Ireland, uses “bold” a lot to mean naughty, cheeky, mischievous. Also “thran”, meaning mad, wild, uncontrollable.
Family & friends in Kent use “well” and “proper” as an adjective to mean “really” (“that was proper good / well good”). Proper is also used on its own to express unqualified approval or enthusiasm (“it was proper”).
Just chatted with the Mrs about more Northern Irish stuff. Something that’s “class” is very cool. “Sound” is used similarly, though it can also be a bit of a veiled insult – if you talk about a friend’s girlfriend being “dead sound” it’s rather damning faint praise that means you can’t think of much that you like about her.
“Yes” is used as a greeting, a bit like hi – “Yes, how you doing?” “Minging” is dirty/filthy, though I’m sure I’ve heard that elsewhere too. “Cat” is crap, ridiculous, stupid. “Oxters” are armpits. I got “thran” wrong, it’s more like stubborn, awkward or obstinate.
Pretty sure backie is Canadian, or if it isn’t that we use it here too. Unfortunately I can’t give you any wierd ones from here because the accent in the praries of Canada is too uniform to provide for much variation. The only strong one is Bunnyhug which is a hooded sweatshirt.
When I was young I wore ‘daps’ to do school PE – apparently, according to my non-West-Country husband, ‘normal’ people call them plimsolls. He’s also ignorant of ‘gert lush’ as a term for really good stuff, and doesn’t partake in my habit of adding ‘r’ and ‘l’ to the end of normal words when tired/drunk (e.g. the well-known supermarket ‘asdal’). Snow also pitches not settles.
On the subject of the great vowel shift – good way to spot those from South West of Birmingham (or thereabouts) – pronouncing toothpaste as ‘tuthpase’.
Spuggy is North East. Ever see Byker Grove? ;)
Tabs = Cigarettes = North East, Hinny = Honey = North East, Cob = Bread roll = North West ?, Bairn = Child = North East, Workie Ticket = Cheeky = North East, Pet = EVERYBODY = North East.
A favourite of mine is “Ann Twacky”. According to one Internet source, a corruption of “antique”. A Manchester-Liverpool-ism methinks.
During my Liverpool school days we also had “boss” (good, as in “de trainers are dead boss”). There was lots of gibberish spoken back then – I’m not sure how much counts as dialect.
I had a dream about being back at school last night. We were smoking behind the bike sheds. Someone said something and, even within the context of the dream, I thought “Ooh, there’s another one for that comment thread”.
Shoot me now.
Anyway, to chuff (like a train?) was to smoke.