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Local language

(73 Posts)
Apricity Mon 11-Dec-17 10:00:32

My grandfather migrated to Australia as a very small child with his family in the early 1900s. He came from Stockport near Manchester. The men in his family were felthatters for many generations and the unmarried women worked in the mills. My grandfather was badly injured in WW2 and died when I was 9.
Some of my few memories of him are words. He called me "snooks" and the term "spiflicate" meaning to chastise someone have come down the family. Are these local or regional words? I would love to hear from GNers from those areas.

lemongrove Tue 19-Dec-17 15:52:13

My Grandma used the word gyp ( as in giving her gyp, or pain) and some people did say spice for sweets, must be a Northern thing.Also spiflicate, meaning hot and you can hardly breathe.Not snooks though.
We also had to ‘side’ the table ( clear things away) were ‘starved’ ( freezing cold) ‘mashed’ the tea ( brewed) and sundry other strange sayings.?

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 15:47:07

It could be 'gyp'

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 15:46:24

DM used to use that term as a noun when something was hurting her, eg, 'my knee is giving me gip'. Pronounced 'jip'
I'd forgotten that one.

MamaCaz Tue 19-Dec-17 15:37:14

An everyday word in my part of Yorkshire was, and still is, 'gip' (a verb, rhyming with 'sip'). Only when i moved further south as an adult did I learn that it's not a widely-known word in large parts of the country, where people 'gag' instead.

MamaCaz Tue 19-Dec-17 15:30:57

In my family, in West Yorkshire, 'snook' was a verb describing that half sniff, half grunt that children sometimes do to clear a grungy throat. Many's the time my mum would tell me to stop snooping when I was little (I used to lurch from cold to cold all winter as a child)!

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 11:52:03

Oh yes, DM used to come in during the winter and say 'I'm starved with cold'.

Witzend Tue 19-Dec-17 11:46:32

As a southerner, I'd never heard 'ginnel' or 'mardy' (grumpy or whingey) or 'starved' (in the sense of freezing to death) until lodging with my student landlady in Yorkshire. She'd say e.g. 'I must light the fire, or else that bird (her beloved budgie) will starve to death.'

Much more recently I was glad to find a 'ginnel' close to a dd's house in Oxford - very handy short cut to the shops!

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 11:36:25

'Wurr be to me 'andsum?' - quite normal in Devon!

Magrithea Tue 19-Dec-17 11:31:29

I remember 'spifflicate' too! I think Ken Dodd' Diddymen used it! Around here in Wiltshire 'where you be to' is sometime used by older folk to ask where you are or live

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 10:17:08

I was apparently always nesh janeainsworth and occasionally mardy but not allowed to remain mardy for long!

Jalima1108 Tue 19-Dec-17 10:15:39

until I lived in Stafford then they became daps I can’t remember where I was when they became pumps but I do think of them as pumps now
I grew up in Staffordshire and they were always pumps in a pump bag (I can still remember it, pale green with my initials embroidered on it).
It wasn't until I moved away further south and west that I heard the word daps.

janeainsworth Tue 19-Dec-17 02:07:32

Apricity I was brought up in Stockport but I’ve never heard of spiflicate or snooks!
How interesting that your family were hatters.
Words I do remember, that I’ve never heard elsewhere, were ‘nesh’ meaning over sensitive to the cold, and ‘mard’ meaning weak/pathetic. As in, if you had cut your knee, and dettol was being scrubbed into the wound, ‘oh don’t be such a mardy-keks’ grin
I love your user-name by the waysmile

paddyann Tue 19-Dec-17 00:43:34

I'm a weegie and plimsoles are sandshoes or gutties .a hair parting was a side shed and a fringe a cancan .I love old words ,and I use them a lot its good to keep them alive for the GC ,I'd hate for them to disappear

Farmor15 Tue 19-Dec-17 00:02:02

In Cork, Ireland, plimsolls were rubber dollys!

Maggiemaybe Mon 18-Dec-17 23:51:50

Funnily enough, your potch was a pump in Durham when I was a child, and plimsolls were sandshoes. Now I'm in Yorkshire they're pumps, but I've never felt able to call them that!

Maggiemaybe Mon 18-Dec-17 23:48:54

On holiday in Marrakech the other week, every time DH turned his back someone was sidling up to me offering me spice cake, happy cake, Madam? I can only think it was because I looked like a bit of an old hippy in my maxi dress. I declined all offers, btw. [halo emoticon]

ninathenana Mon 18-Dec-17 23:48:51

BlueBelle what you called a "potch" was "blowing off" to us.

callgirl1 Mon 18-Dec-17 23:35:39

I grew up in South Yorkshire, spice were sweets, plimsolls were pumps, a bottle of pop was called mineral, and a friendly greeting was "you`re not so bright".

BlueBelle Mon 18-Dec-17 05:54:00

Plimsolls were always plimsolls here is Suffolk until I lived in Stafford then they became daps I can’t remembeevwhere I was when they became pumps but I do think of them as pumps now ( is that a generational thing)
What was your word for a bottom noise I don’t know if it was just our family but my grandparents came from Leicestershire and it was always a ‘‘potch’ I ve never heard that word anywhere else ?

SparklyGrandma Mon 18-Dec-17 05:45:21

Bbbevan and twp!

Greyduster Mon 11-Dec-17 18:30:29

Crikey! You learn something new everyday! Thank you, Maple!

Mapleleaf Mon 11-Dec-17 18:23:33

Apparently, Greyduster, the word spice now refers to some kind of illegal drug. Like you, I recall it as a word to mean sweets - my Dad often used it.

Jalima1108 Mon 11-Dec-17 17:23:32

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

Jalima1108 Mon 11-Dec-17 17:19:53

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

CherryHatrick Mon 11-Dec-17 17:15:31

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