A HARTLEPOOL DICTIONARY
Answers
Aye-ah! = the noise you make when you stub your toe or touch something hot
Bewer = an attractive (but not particularly elegant) young woman
Blaked = completely, hopelessly drunk
Clammin' = wanting something really badly - 'ah'm clammin' for a pint, me like'
Croggy = a ride on a bicycle pedalled by someone else
Dut = a knitted hat
Netty = a lavatory bowl
Ow-ee! = come on, move yourself! (compare with the Wearside 'haway!')
Palatic = another word for drunk (probably a corruption of paralytic)
Pikelet = a crumpet
Scallion = a spring onion
Shan = of very poor quality
Spelk = a wooden splinter, the kind that might make you go 'aye-ah!"
Comments
Goodness
being a southerner, and South Walian to boot, whilst I've heard some of these words or similar from other parts of this sceptred isle, next time I visit anywhere above Sheffield, I'll have to take my phrase book, just in case I'm clammin' fer a croggy.
A rapscallion, sounds like a spring onion that makes an insufferable noise, such as dominates the ipods and thus ears of many teenagers.
Thanks for the translation.
Angharad
I love this!
Having worked at sea for many years I worked alongside many, many Glaswegians, Shelties, Geordies, Tykes, Monkey hangers, Scunners, Scousers, Scon'eads' Manc's, Janners, Mushes, Taffs, Jacks, Turks, Paddys (Not Paddies!) Jocks - and of course, finally, the ubiquitous Cocknies. You name em, I've met em'; and all with their own accent/dialect/vocabulary.
I all adds to the rich fabric of Britishness that only we in these islands can fully appreciate.
Heartfelt thanks for the Hartlepool dictionary some words I recognised; some I hadn't heard of before. (Didn't see the word Monkey-hanger though.) Ooops!
Love and hugs.
Bevs.
I am amused
Despite my earlier comment about pendant apes, you have not mentioned monkeys!
And we used to have a static caravan at Crimdon.....
I am NOT a monkey hanger!
I was born In West Hartlepool, which until 1967 was completely separate from 'old' Hartlepool. Even when I go there today I can't think of the headland as being part of my home town.
For my take on the monkey legend, see the part of my blog entitled 'A Misadventure Gallery'.
A caravan at Crimdon? Posh or what?
Aye, marrer!
Free coal on the beach! And we won't mention 'Fet Carter'; that's one hell of a foot chase from Dunston to Blackhall.
My father used to separate WH from Hartlepool by using the term "British West Hartlepool"
More please.
I do love finding different dielectric dictionaries. I have a separate but growing file forming a data base of this rich stew of expressions. Those of us who shair the roots of the English languages, need these cliff notes, so we better understand just what the other ment. As a fledgling word smithy, I need to build up a larger source of understanding, so I may add depth to my characters expressionism.
So please any of our little family here who feels so inclined, shair with the rest of us. Any archaic or modernized fiddly bits you have to offer, please do.
Huggles
Misha Nova.
EX. poke = southern american word for bag or sack. Do not buy a pig in a poke.
Yo = Philadelphian greeting.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
You'd Love Wearside
I moved to Sunderland from Seaton Carew near Hartlepool in 2005 - a distance of 21 miles. I knew the area well and already had lots of friends here, but I still felt at times that I'd emigrated to another country.
It's cauld [pronounced 'card'] the neet, marra = It's cold tonight, my friend
('marra', by the way, implies a degree of respect not usually carried by other English forms of greeting such as 'mate' or 'pal', which can be used in an aggressive context e.g. 'I'd keep your mouth shut if I was you, pal'.)
Ah'd gan oot but ah've nee clays man = I'd go out [for a drink] but I've got no [suitable] clothes
('man' is a redundant word here, as in many other places)
I telt yer yer'd get wrang off your lass = I told you your wife/girlfriend would give you a telling off
('wrang' literally means 'wrung', as in put through the mangle of an old-fashioned washing machine)
It's ower late to be gannin' yam = It's too late to be going home
('ower' is probably a corruption of 'over')
Another 12 miles takes you to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the dialect is different again.
I walk down the cursed = I work at the coast
Giz a broon, hinnie = I'd like a [bottle of Newcastle] brown [Ale], barmaid
('hinnie' means 'hen')
This is why I don't set my fiction north of Hartlepool
Hinny
Is from 'honey'. One thing a lot of people miss about the various NE dialects is that they are often relics of much older forms rather than distortions of the current. A classic Geordie phrase, whose meaning should be obvious, is "Ah used to could", which is directly from older forms of English. There is also the word "axe" meaning "ask", which derives from the OE "acsian" rather than mispronunciation.
I could give a lecture about the change to Middle English from OE involving the adoption of conjunctions and prepositions from Scandinavian languages and losing the inflections, but....
A lot more of the words derive from pitmatic, which is a specific language of the coal mines. "Marra/marrer" for example is a particular term for someone who works beside you at cutting a seam of coal by hand with a pick. A good place to work is a "canny kyevil", by the way, "a good cable"
Finally, as I saw in a recent story set in Newcastle (shame on you, Peter Hamilton!), the word 'canny' may well mean 'shrewd' in Scotland, but that is not among the very many meanings in the NE.
Check out Jennifer Jane Pope's Britionary
for more of these delightful dialectic nuances. http://www.storysite.org/story/britionary~01.html
Huggles and love,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
This blog proves the fact
that every culture has their own unique names, definitions and terms for most anything. :)
May Your Light Forever Shine