Local language

No idea but I do know that different parts of the country have words which mean nothing to people from other areas.

My cousin and I have discussions about crumpets and pikelets. She says a pikelet is the fat thing and I say it is thin like a Scotch pancake. She doesn't recognise the word crumpet at all. My FiL used to go to the Barley Mow, pronounced like cow and wouldn't have it that it was anything to do with mowing barley.

When DH and I got engaged I was asked "where are you holding it up at". Can anyone tell me where we were at the time?

Oddly enough, I was talking to DH about this the other day when I was going out to buy some ground cinnamon - a spice - to go in a cake. I told him that when I was growing up, the word ‘spice’ was used to denote sweets. I remember my father saying he had bought me ‘some spice’ on the way home from work, and it seemed to be widely used in that context in our area. I have never heard it so used since. I remember the word spiflicate, also from my childhood.

I remember spiflicate, too. I lived in the South East, so perhaps it's universal. Pikelets in the local shops were/are the thin ones! My SiL used to cut through the twittern, which I think is a Sussex word, but she lived in Surrey. Words evidently travel!

I remember spiflicate too but I'm not from Manchester.

We also called sweets "spice" in the West Riding when I was a child Gd. Maybe it's a Yorkshire thing? We also used "spiflicate".

Crumpets were the fat squashy ones and pikelets the larger, thin ones.

What about ginnels, allies, snickets and entries? Presume "twittern" is another such?

My pet name for grandchildren, and pets is snooky or snookums. Perhaps they are universally used terms.

Never heard spiflicate.

Spice is something very different now and nothing to do with cooking!

Gg Yes, a twittern was a little alleyway/path used as a short cut.

Nonnie??

*Squiffy" Was twittern pronounced twitnin' ? That is how my grandparents said it - Sussex born and bred.

Elegran From what I can recall, my SiL pronounced it as it’s spelt, but she was a Surrey girl, so perhaps that’s why.

When I was little plimsolls were called daps, the cupboard under the stairs the catch and if you did something silly you were two. Welsh words but used in an English Grandma's house

The cwtch. I just hate predictive text

Bristol has, I think some words and phrases not heard anywhere else. For instance "gurt" meaning very. It is often used in the phrase "gurt lush" meaning very nice. When leaving a bus Bristolians say "thanks drive". Snow doesn't settle in Bristol it "pitches". Bristolians also add an "l" onto the end of words so a girl named Norma would be called Normal. The original name for Bristol was Bristow but it is thought that the citizens habit of putting an l on the end of words gradually changed it to Bristol. Pure Bristolian is almost unintelligible to anyone not brought up in the city. Some years ago I was visiting my brother in Australia and we started speaking in broad Bristolian which baffled his children!

BBevan yes plimsolls were (still are to me) daps!

I think it was daps in Brum as well.

Sorry GreyDbut I really had never heard of it before today. I have moved around a lot but DH insists I live in my own little world so that might be why!

It was the reference to spice that made me wonder if I was missing something? 😏 Probably better not to elaborate - I’ve led a very sheltered life!

My Bristol relatives say 'I was led on the bed' whereas I say I lay on the bed.
Oh yes, gurt lush!

Greyduster

Sorry, but plimsolls are pumps! And the cotton drawstring bag they go in with your name embroidered on the front by your mum was a 'pump bag'.

sunseaker it always made me laugh to hear my Bristolian GM say "ideal" instead of idea etc. especially as she would insist she hadn't.
I thought it just her
The family moved to Kent when mum was 14 but she didn't speak that way. She never lost her accent though.
My PGF used to call our hands puddies and dad always said flutterby not butterfly, which is better I think.

To me, with a travelling childhood through England and over seas spiflicating was a word of praise as in: 'We had spiflicating day' used to describe a lovely day out.

'Twitten' to describe an alley or ginnel goes farther than Sussex. In north Berkshire in 1468, yes I mean 1468, the man who was building the house I now live in was up before the manor court for blocking the twitten. An early case of a builder blocking a road with whatever was the 1468 equivalent of a skip!

Nonnie my home town has a Barley Mow that rhymes with cow.

I used to go to a pub called the Barley Mow that rhymes with cow - it was in a village near where I lived.

A mow is a stack of hay
A barleymow is a stack of barley