You only have to go down to Leicester Market to be addressed with 'Ey up, me duck' instead of 'Good morning, Sir.' And if you do anything to surprise the stall holder he's likely to respond with, 'Ooooya beauty!' or 'Ark at him!'As I've lived in Leicester all my life I'm not too sure which colloquialisms are local to Leicester and which are in general use throughout the country. Is it just in Leicester that you say:
'frit' when you're frightened
'Charlie's dead' when you're petticoat's showing
'The Oakey Man' for the Ice cream van
'Don't mither me' for don't bother me
'Jitty' for alleyway
If there are any Leicester people reading this, then please add to the list. I'm sure there must be many more local words.
If you're not from Leicester then what local dialect words do you have round your way?
Interestingly, I know 'ark at 'im and Charlie's dead from a Yorkshire childhood. So I don't think they're Leicester specific. One of the things I like to compare is what people call bread rolls. They're barm cakes where I come from. And stottie cakes a bit further north. But they're cobs around here. I'm sure there's loads more variations.
ReplyDeleteYes, they're definitely cobs here in Leicester. My London cousins think I'm weird if I talk about eating cobs. To them all bread rolls are called rolls. Boring, aren't they!
DeleteI admire those dialect coaches in films and the actors who are able to pick up realistic sounding accents and dialects. I'd love to be able to do that, but have not been overly successful on my own doing good impersonations. Maybe with a dialect coach.
ReplyDeleteThe colloquialisms would have me stumped if I heard them.
Lee
Wrote By Rote
There must be many terms from your part of the world that would have me stumped, Arlee.
DeleteIn Yorkshire, our alleyways are called ginnells
ReplyDeleteI remember being somewhere up North where alleys are called Snickelways.
DeleteThat must be West Yorkshire. They were snickets in North Yorks. Snickelways might be Lincs. Fascinating stuff, isn't it?
DeleteWe dunt av any spcfc werds in artfordsher, we just tork with a naxent.
ReplyDeleteBetchya ya do have locl werds, an all, betchya.
DeleteBroad Wiltshire is lovely - but when it's really strong I can't understand it. But it involved a lot of 'r's.
ReplyDeleteOoh arrrrrrr!
DeleteI find dialects fascinating. Last night I was listening to an interview with Russel Brand and thinking how much more exciting it was to listen to British dialects than American. I can't judge how I sound but I bet Americans sound flat to others. There are the melodic highs and lows in the British.
ReplyDeleteI love listening to American accents and I know you have dialect words that are different from ours, like sidewalk and trash cans.
DeleteI'm from Yorkshire, so we have plenty of dialect words, the trouble is, like you, I don't know which are specific to our area. I think mardy (meaning sulky) is one that's not widely known - though I could be mistaken!
ReplyDeleteWe're proper mardy here in Leicester too.
DeleteI used to live in Dorset and there were heaps of lovely old words down there, but one thing I remember thinking was so special when I went there first was when they said "Where be you to?" It meant where are you going? Like Wiltshire, there's lots of arrrrr and errors. Remember that sone I've got a brand new combine 'arvester' by the Wurzels?
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for that, Val. I now can't stop singing that annoying song!!! 🎶 I've got a brand new combine 'arvester...
DeleteEy up, me duck for Good Morning Sir.
ReplyDeleteI think that is cool.
The degree of 'coolness' depends on who is speaking and how it's said. It can be annoying... But not as annoying as that Wurzels' song from Val's comment above!!!
Deletefun and interesting post to read. Quite a "foreign" language. Texas has its share of dialect and frankly it sounds foreign to this Yankee girl half the time. I hate "fix'in to" instead of "I'm going to do something.". That is Texas.
ReplyDeleteWe have lots of Glasgow patter up here Ros. We have a Glasgow soap called River City and I must say I do cringe with the slang they mostly speak.I was always told to speak proper English but some slang words are good.
ReplyDeleteHi Ros .. I wish my ear picked up more things like this - perhaps they do, but the brain doesn't hang on to them .. we have twitten for an alleyway ... and drove for road ...
ReplyDeleteBap - is beating the Americans on my blog!! Can't seem to get their head round a soft large brown 'roll' ... and Bara is what it's called in Cornwall .. bara for wheat ...
The British Library .. was doing a project on voice/dialect .. recording them for posterity ... there's a lot more of those sorts of things going on ...
I've got a Cornish dictionary or two - they must have lots of interesting original words ...
Fascinating .. cheers Hilary
These are all great! My favorite is "Charlie's dead," though I hope my petticoat is never exposed!
ReplyDeleteJulie