Local language

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.

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

Bbbevan and twp!

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 ?

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

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]

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!

In Cork, Ireland, plimsolls were rubber dollys!

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

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’
I love your user-name by the way

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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)!

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.

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.

It could be 'gyp'

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.?

Ginnel is a Lancashire word, snicket is a Yorkshire word.

Monica your spiflicating reference made me wonder whether that’s where the term ‘spiffing’, meaning something lovely or really good, comes from?
Another word we hear a lot in Yorkshire is “nithering” (usually pronounced minus the ‘g’) to indicate that it is very cold.

The only snicket I have heard of is Lemony Snicket