Re: Old local expressions
 

:rofl38::rofl38::rofl38::rofl38:

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38°C over here for the last 10 days -another week to go apparently...living constantly in air-conditioning and with fans on. As a result i woke up this morning and my first thought was "Mi neck is givin' mi some jip...."!!

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I think the proper Accy word for having a day off work is "playing" -it features in my great.grandads journals of his accounts while working as a dataling opening up new coal faces at hapton mine....early 1900's.

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'They could talk the hind legs off a donkey.' - Said of a talkative person.

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thas getton more mouth than Plymouth and there was another saying but would have to use the over 18s:D

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Another favourite saying from my Mum was "He/She was a fret worker (worked a week fretted for months).

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Or even "a bag a welks"

wuff

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Are you refering to whats under a cows tail.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Retlaw.

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'if oo hed any mor meawth, she hev no face to wesh'
'her as too much o wat cat licks its bottom wi'
'She hez a meawth like a roven(torn) pocket'
'She hez a meawth like a rusty bucket'

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'He hez a face like a bulldog licking waz(pee) off a thistle'
'Her hez a face like a hens bum on a frosty mornin'
'He hez a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp'
'Gerrawaywithee'

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Bomzit - An untidy place.

I could never work out if a bomzit meant 'a bomb's hit', or it was like 'a bomb site'.

Either way, my bedroom was very often described as being like a bomzit, apparently.

:D

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Bomb Site = bomsite
Retlaw

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Seems it could still have two meanings, bomb site, and bomb's hit.

• look like a bomb has hit it
  
  informal
  to look very untidyYour bedroom looks like a bomb has hit it!
  
  http://www.macmillandictionary.com/e...ages/tinyT.gifThesaurus entry for this meaning of bomb

bomb - definition of bomb by Macmillan Dictionary

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He were agate like this eer!

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Dad used to put me to bed and say "Neckle bless".....wonder where that came from?

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Thad wud a sounded like, "luks lyk a bomsitit".
Never cum across a Lanky Thesaurus, weyr du yu ged um fro, a cu du wi one o them.
Retlaw.

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I'm not sure but it could just be that it was 'Night, God Bless'...in a contracted form......I am sure soldiers used to say something like(and Retlaw might be able to help out here)...'its all mi eye and something(can't remember the word) martin'....this saying was supposed to have its roots in a french saying...but was bastardised by troops who didn't understand the french language.
Well, that is unless anyone knows anything different.:)

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Complete change of tack but where does "as daft as a brush" come form?

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It would if we were translating received pronunciation.

Round here, where you never heard much of the Queen's English, they'd say,
'Looks like a bomb's hit.'

Which in Lanky would be shortened even further to,
'Looks like a bomzit.'

We're never happier than when shortening words, or dropping them all together.

Why waste time and energy, when you're pow fagged from a hard day's graft, saying two words, when one'll do?

That's my take on it, and what was said where I lived. Though as you posted, there will be deviations in speech, even within a radius of a few miles.

So really, seeing as Lanky dialect was spoken, and never intended to be written down, at least by the ordinary man, there's really no right, or wrong.

If it seems reet, it is.

:D

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All that mouthin' off....:eek:

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A face that could curdle cream/turn milk sour - A stern, grim faced person.

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'Scuse me but cows are beasts of great dignity - used by man every day...I know because i work with them...utmost regard for their sufference....

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I've remembered it now......'it's all mi eye and betty martin'(meaning it's nonsense or unbelievable)...amazing when you stop trying so hard it comes to you.

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Always like when asked which way somebody went the answer could be he went up bonk or down bonk.Once said that while working in london bloke looked at me gone out:D:D

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Or a face like a slapped arse- a sulker.

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Look at yon whos gettin a bottom lip like a pigeon lettin board (sulking)
Use your heed lad its not just fur puttin yur hat on

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Never heard that, but others have.

World Wide Words: All my eye and Betty Martin

Bit too papist for us Methodists.

Plus it sounds a little like you're cursing your great granny.

Or it would in our house.

:D

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Even better ideas, and sources, on this link.

Language Log Who was Betty Martin?

I like this, and will use it now.

Thanks.

:)

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My auntie used this phrase very often...and in such a scathing tone of voice that I never needed to ask what was meant by the phrase.
I didn't get the derivation quite right, but was pretty near.

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It was very good.

I just copied and pasted what you'd written into Google, and bingo!

:D

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another one was "Gordon Bennett" which i always took to mean,"Shock" or "Surprise"

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I will use it.

My great granny was Betsy Martin anyway.

So I can quite happily use poor Betty's name in vain.

:D

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I was always led to believe that it came from East Lancs soldiers, who were stationed out in the Middle East well before WW1, who had heard wog god botherers chanting something like all mia beit martaine, and refered to it as all my eye and Betty Martin, very much like the saying its all Greek to me.
Retlaw.

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Just realised I have heard this before, and even used it myself.

Picked up off an old Mancunian, who used to say 'My eye', if someone was talking gibberish, or nonsense.

They missed off the Betty Martin ending though.

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Rainin' stair rods - Very heavy rainfall.

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correct ;)

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A bit of a play on that Rindi "looking my eye can you see green" whilst pulling the skin on the underside of the eye, meaning do you think I'm stupid

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Another old saying.
Thrutchin.
As in sat on the porcelain throne, a bit constipated, Ee I ed to fur thrutch to ged rid o thad.

Retlaw.

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Great word Thrutching...
Traipsin about - wandering with no particular place to go...

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Just found this idiom at the back of my Lanky english booklet
"Least room most thrutchin' "
Have you heard of that one? Apparently it means: Those who have least about them boast the most!

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Another one "if they put your brains in a bird it would fly backwards"

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Ger off wi thi, thrutchin means pushing & shoving, to either get rid of something or make room for something.
Retlaw.

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Ye soft ha'peth

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I like that one John.....I might just use that.

Another one......'if tha brains were dynamite tha wuddent hev enough to blow thi hat off'...or if tha brains were elastic, that wuddent hev enough to mek a frogs jock strap'

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another one for you...'ther nod all daft that slavver'
And another......'ther's more of em walkin abeauwt than were ever locked up' (said of daft folk)

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was always "Budgie" round our way.:)

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My dad always used to say if someone was on the large size " look at her she favours a pile of muffins" nowadays they say she's got a muffin top, and there are plenty of young girls walking round accy with muffins tops lol!

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Is a ha'peth a hapenny piece?

My Grandad used to tell me that he used to go to the chip shop and ask for a penneth of bits when he was young -couldn't afford fish and chips.! The "bits" were all the leftover bits of batter, chips and fish...delicious:rolleyes:

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That reminds me of the woman who went in the butchers with her little lad and she asked the butcher for a bone for the dog, little said hooo goody goody we're getting a dog:D

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As owd as me tongue, an' a bit owder than me teeth!

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Your stood there like cheese at 4d (pence)

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Or...you're stood there like one o clock half struck. I never did get that one.

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watch the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves

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Where does 'rootin(g?)' come from, as in 'Have you been rootin in my drawers?'

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I don't know...but if you ever go to Oz, don't use that term...it means something entirely different:)

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Dressed up like a dog's dinner... a bit like mutton dressed as lamb!

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He were pie eyed:D

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I know another term which would be frowned on on here but means an idiot down under :rolleyes:

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A sandwich short of a picnic

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Last time I tried it, I got my face slapped!

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I knew I wasn't the only one with a dirty mind on here.
Can't even guess what it means in Oz, Margaret(well, if I think about it!)
I knew I should have said 'tool box'.
Go on, someone will twist that too.

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I was once in a Mall in Knox City(just outside Melbourne)........my niece was with me but in a different part of the shop we were looking in...she shouted 'Marg...where are you?'
I said 'I'm just rootin' round in this bin full of underwear'(cheap bra's knickers camisoles)...she came out of nowhwere and told me that I could't say that...and then whispered what it meant over there. I blushed!
As they say over there 'you can beat an egg, but you can't beat a root'.

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Garinda's use of 'thisen' interests me. I hear nothing except 'thisel' in Accrington and it wasn't until I met up with people from other towns that I heard thisen' I have always thought it more Yorkshire than Lanky.

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The say, I think, actually originates from the Doncaster area Bob, Lived with a woman who was born and bred in Donny and her parents used that saying all the time, meaning Yourself

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As children we would earwig on adult conversations.
If we asked who the grown ups were talking about, the answer was 'im in neet wit' rag arm'
Someone(usually female) who was no better than they ought to be, was said to be 'neawt a peauwnd, and muck's tuppence....and that's at bumpin' weight'

Someone with a loud voice was said to be able to 'whisper over three fields...Sheffield, Huddersfield and Chesterfield'

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Some wonderful words and phrases in this glossary, published in 1875.

Full text of "A glossary of the Lancashire dialect"

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Try this for a little light reading at bedtime, from 1748.

http://gredos.usal.es/jspui/bitstrea...alect_1748.pdf

:eek:

I should imagine it's a struggle, even for those of the broadest Lancashire accent.

To me it's like reading Spanish, which I don't really speak.

With just the odd word or two making sense.

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Here gam means disabled through injury.

The Dialect Dictionary - Word Gam - Language your way

That's not how it was used where I lived.

Gam meant game/brave.

'He were reet gam, climbin' reet t'top o'that tower.'

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The first song on this clip is a Lancashire protest song about poverty, written in dialect in 1790. (Recording of Alan Lomax singing it in 1951.)

Here are the lyrics.

I'm a four loom weaver, as many a one knows.
I've naught t'eat, and I've wore out mi clothes.
Mi clogs are both broken, and stockin's I've none.
They'd hardly give me tuppence for all I'm gettin' on
Ole Billy at Bent, he kept telling me long
We might have better times if I'd not but hold mi tongue.
Well, I've held mi tongue till I've near lost mi breath
And I feel in mi heart that I'll soon clem to death.
[Refrain]
Ole Billy's all right, he never will clem
And he's never picked o'er in his life.


The second song is a protest verse from Yorkshire, in a similar vein.

Though of course that's all gibberish, and can't be translated.

:D

Two Late 18th Century English Labor Protest Songs:" Four-Loom Weaver and "Fourpence a Day." - YouTube

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I could make out some of it, but that lot was written in the 1700's, probably hearing it spoken it might make more sense. Waugh was one of the best at writing the Lanky dialect, as it was spoken in the 1900's.
Reading old documents from the 1100's to the 1800's shows a marked difference in spelling, which would also affect pronunciation.

Retlaw.

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A nice collection of Lancashire dialect poetry on this site, which has audio, so they can all be listened to.

Lancashire Dialect Poems

Including poems by Alice Miller, who Miller Close in Oswaldtwistle is named after, and Joan Pomfret, who lived in Great Harwood.

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...ler-49851.html

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heard one this aft i'd forgotten, "Vexed" me nan used to use it, dunno if its lanky or not?

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Pobbies - little chunks of bread in hot milk.
Suitable as food for children, or invalids.

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That's one my dad used to say.....of course Butties are also only eaten in Lancs.
Favourites being a Chip Butty or a Jam Butty (what I used to get when i came in from school!)

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One my grandma used to say was cockle over.

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Another of Mums sayings was "I favour him/her etc......_

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"Any road" meaning anyway.

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Roots Canada & International – Handcrafted Designer Leather Handbags, Messenger Bags, Hoodies

I know it's a wander; but it seems apt. My best friend's daughter manages the local store. She told me once that Australian tourists spend a fortune on their products.:D

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"I'll have a walk" meaning I will just go to the toilet.

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Jambutty:angry::angry::angry:don't mention that word on here:D

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Another one in that vain I'm just off to point Percy at the porcelain:D

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I rewatched Alan Bennett's 1975 play, Sunset Across the Bay , this week.

The main character said to his wife, before going into a toilet on the prom,
'I'm just going to shed a tear Mother.'

Amused me, though I'd never heard it before.

Must be a Yorkshire thing.

:D

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I like it!

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Certainly different:D

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I've really enjoyed reading this thread. Lot's of things my mother used to say. Sad to think they've gone out of use.

Camping - having a chat, talking to each other

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meaning you look like him or her......except in our neck of the woods it was......Well, he cuddent ged eauwt o thad un......that babby favvers him to a T'
Or 'dun't he favver thi father(to rhyme with lather)?'

Camping...gassing - having a good old gossip...over the back yard wall or on the front step(or stoop).

Said of someone lucky......eeh, if he fell off co-op, he'd land in't divvy.
Said of someone unlucky ...eeh if he fell in a barrel of t*ts, he'd come up sucking his thumb(sorry about the last one...done in the name of balance).

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In n t slopstone............... meaning its in the sink.

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In the interests of gender equality: "eeh, if she fell in a barrel of (to be continued ....);)

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These sayings were formulated before equality and PC vlaues were even thought of Eric....
I await the 'continued' bit with interest.:)

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Is "Let's have a shufty" Lancs?

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or "have a sneck at that?"

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give him some jip

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"There's nowt as queer as folk..."

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'Have a gander', meaning the same thing, look at something.

Presumably because you might have to stick your neck out to see, like a goose.

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What about "Have a butcher's ..." than where does that fit in?

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Don't know if it's particularly Lancastrian, but it used to make me laugh when I heard it as a child.

Said of an elderly spinster.

'Sent back to God's sorting office unopened.'

:D

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Probably those cock-er-nees.

Butcher's hook.

Look.

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He's one on 'is own....a bit of an eccentric?

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Think yer right -"Bladdy savveners"!:D