Terms of use.Anonymous, offensive, or malicious postings will be deleted. School-related topics only please. If you need to add a "family notice" reply to any of the current messages in that thread, and remember to change the Subject to the name of the newsworthy person.
Shaun it was a peggy stick and so called I imagine for the wooden pegs or legs if you like that created the washing motion. The dolly was a little bag of blue or dolly blue. The posser had a domed copper head or at least ours did , maybe we were posher than we knew.
My particular memories are of emptying the peggy tub with a ladling can.The soap flakes would have turned to a slippy jelly after they had cooled and it was like ladling snot. Sinced we washed in 't'cellar oil where muck slats on't winders' it all had to be ladled down a stone sink and worked down the plughole if too many soap flakes had been used. Emptying the last dregs were worst and as one got bigger the tub could be lifted to the sink and the last bit would go out in one gellid mass. GLOOP!!!!
As to the Yorkshire dialect thing. It is related to the Anglo Saxon influx and much remains of the Germanics they brought. This together with the Viking or Norwegian others mentioned. Laiking comes from Lachen as does 'kind' from 'kinder', garden from garten. 'Eleven' and 'twelve' are from the old Icelandics. They did say at one time that you could take a farmer from the Dales to Jutland and provided they spoke about farming and keeping cattle the relative farmers could converse with each other.
The word for 'left handed' is a useful dialect indicator. I use 'cack-handed' What does anyone else use? Try and buy a scone and chips anywhere else but Keighley. Or go scrumping or blegging or cheggying.
Wasn't dolly blue a whitener or bleaching agent? Cakhander was always a leftie.
Remember our mothers used to yellowstone the front step on each side. If you didn't have a garden the washing was hung across the street and if a car,van or truck wanted to go through,they tooted the horn and the mothers would come out and lift the clothes line with a prop.
Crackneys and jam pasties.Boy that takes me back-my mothers baking was legendary with my mates in Australia when they discovered it.Now and again for a treat, my wife will get out my mams recipe for potted meat and make some. Absobloodylutely delicious.When I was in Keighley last year I bought a Yorkshire curd tart from Wilds bakery. Just lovely.
A lot of the terms and expressions we learnt at "our mothers' knee" - but what was more enlightening were the expressions picked up in part-time labouring jobs - like "When he saw t'gaffer coming, he were that scared it put his s##t back a fortnit". Pittoresque? or what?
Of course, additional to such crude imagery, there were the terms and sayings that originated or were used in the trade being practised - especially in textiles.
Strange how these words come to mind - We used to say "Dout it out" or "dout it" meaning to put out a fire or a cigarette etc. Youngsters in York used this expression when I worked there in the late '60s. Could it originally have been "do out" as similarly "don" and "doff" were formerly "do on" and "do off"?
"Skellered" for warped as in "Yon door let's in t'draught. It's skellered".
"Clacker" as in "I could murder a pint - my clacker's dry as dust".
"Mythering" what kids do to get sommat or get noticed or get fetched one.
The Yorkshire Dialect Society has a web site...address below.....
http://www.ydsociety.org.uk/
Terry, I'm indebted to you for reminding me of the clacker - a much more descriptive word than epiglottis. You seem to have some knowledge of linguistics so can you throw any light on a word much used by my father when he got home from a long day's work in the "blackshop". He was usually "paid".
No special knowledge, Shaun. However, it surprises me how some of the sayings and phrases just come back to the mind. Like others who have posted in these pages, I live out of the county but when I go back, especially to Keighley, I find the dialect returns, and I am "bilingual" again. (Well, nearly, because I'm not nearly as proficient as those who have had a lifetime there but I can converse without translating!!)My Dad swore I should never work in a "blackshop" even though it kept us. I remember folk using the term "paid out", meaning "tired to the point of exhaustion". Was that a local colloquialism for "spent" meaning "used up"? I can't think of many examples but Yorkshire dialect seems sometimes to take a normal English expression and turn it into a version of its own - e.g. "anyway" becomes "any road". Any others. Thanks to Bernard for raising this subject.
My village Cowling was, 50 years ago, a strange, other-worldly sort of place where a lot of people had common surnames and was a major source of patients for Menston. Somebody has recognised it as one of the last bastions of Yorkshire dialect. When I lived there it was possible to tell by the dialect whether one lived in the main part of the village or in one of the outlying hamlets - Middleton, Ickornshaw, Cowling Hill, where speech had a Lancashire twang. Professor Higgins would have found it intriguing. This link goes into more detail.
Interesting observation Paul. I remember two 'lads' in my form at School, one from Cowling and one from Glusburn and they both lived on farms on more or less, the same hillside, if you know the area. The Cowling 'lad', Jesse Lund(what a great name!), had one of the thickest Yorkshire accents I've ever heard, and very close to a Lancashire accent. Gordon Warin, the Glusburn 'lad',lived on a farm behind the Dog & Gun, and he was a close runner-up to Jesse,accent-wise. Both smashing 'lads' and I believe all of us in our form learned lots of new words and sayings from these two during our time at School in the mid to late '40s.
Where does one start when discussing Cowling? For those of us down in the Glusburn/Sutton/Crosshills conurbation, it has always been regarded as something of a strange place - "it's allus a top coit colder up there", and the residents are seen as a cross between the characters in "League of Gentlemen" and "Deliverance". A friend moved up there from the valley bottom. Some wag in the Old White Bear remarked "There's two kind o'folk 'at live in Cowin'ead; Cowin'eaders, and them as knows no better!"
He lasted about a year!
Good comments Paul /David. I had an interesting experience back in '82 on my first visit home since leaving in 1954.I had it in my mind to buy a Joseph Pighills painting,and I traipsed (another forgotten word) up and down Main Street in Haworth and was told the same story in each shop "Nay,tha won't get any of Joe's,he's bin retired for years." Eventually in one shop I met a guy who offered to paint any photo I wanted him to copy,which was a generous offer, but without giving it any thought I just replied."No thanks, I want a painting done by a local artist" He was taken aback by this and protested " but I am a local artist" - my response was that "you might live local but you don't come from here". With that he cracked up and I asked him-- "well-where do you come from?" his response was "Barnoldswick-but no one has every questioned me before on not being a local, how did you pick it?"
That's when it got interesting because I told him "Well you see I COME from here". That really got him going as I sound like anything BUT a Yorkshireman these days (eh David?). Anyhow, of course I could easily establish my credentials as to being a local lad, but I had him guessing.
How did I pick him? I can't tell you, I just knew.I suppose growing up there you are used to the various nuances in their voices and when I'm back there I am just SO comfortable. Whew that's a bit of a rant.Catching up to Arthur !! Cheers.
ps to finish the story, I related my adventure to some old friends who said,"Ay lad,we know old Joe, he still lives at top of Marsh,we'll go up and see him."We did and I finished bringing home some of his work, and it turned out that Joe was an old friend of my grandfather and we got on fine.Incidentally,Joe Pighills had one of the broadest Yorkshire accents I have ever come across.
"Get some rice pudding down thi' neck. It'll put lead in thi' pencil."
I'll give thee a lug 'oler.
Although I have been away from Yorkshire for many many years the dialect and words are still with me.
A few years ago I entered an orchard here locally where I came upon a farmer addressing a group of Japanese tourists. The farmer had a very pronounced Yorkshire accent. I hadn't heard it for years so I couldn't resist hollering out. " Hey suthee lad 'ast t'ad thee leg o'er lately."
The poor man blushed and started sputtering not realizing that only he and I knew what I said.
We became good friends it turns out he was from Halifax.
We often met for lunch with Canadian friends and it wasn't long into a conversation before my Yorkshire accent was returning. I found it quite amazing that he and I could converse in English without other English speaking people understanding what we were talking about.
David - my family knew Gordon Warin quite well - my dad was a maintenance engineer contracted by Gordon to install weaving machinery in a mill at Midleton, near Cork. I think he worked for Gordon on other occasions also. I see Gordon's photo is on this site. I can't recall Jesse Lund - I guess he was older than I, but Lund was a prominent South Craven name. I'll ask my mother - she's 98 years old and living in an old folks' home near Melbourne.
David Seeley mentions the Dog & Gun. For a funny take on that go to Kate Rusby at:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3nLM0azB0H0
For her serious side listen to 'Who will sing me lullabies'.
Yes Bernard - appleing was great fun, and scary if you were caught. Then you'd have belly ache and t'trots for a couple of days after scoffin' the green 'uns.
There's not much dialect left around Ickornshaw these days, and the accents you hear are just as likely to be from Leeds or Preston or even from southern suburbia as from the Yorkshire/Lancashire borders. And you're equally likely to meet a painter, a potter or an artist working in metal as a farmer. Times have changed.
Paul- The Gordon Warin you are talking about is in fact, MY Gordon's uncle, who indeed, had a textile machinery business in the Bingley area some years ago. The 'Dog & Gun' Gordon was a farmer all his working life and when I spoke to him today and mentioned your name, he recalled someone of your name having worked for his uncle Gordon. He also tells me that Jesse Lund had a farm on Cowling Hill and has in recent years retired to North Yorkshire.
When ,as a young lad, I spilled something down me, my Grandma (who lived two doors away from Trevor Pickles) used to say. 'Eee thee's a reight mucktub'
Aye, and me mates dad used to say to him - 'thee's a reight duck-egg'.
Not quite sure what a duck-egg has to to with anything but.....!!
Have we covered the term 'gormless' for being clumsy?
Times wuh hard tha knaws, niver easy,
jobs wuh scarce and money wur 'ard to come by,
none of thi Social in those days.
Thi med do an’ managed best tha cud
and that were t’end on it.
One time though we wuh really short.
There wuh nowt in’t house to eat.
We wuh pined bowleg.
I heard mi Dad say
-What iver are we to do?
and mi Mam said, quiet-like,
- Don’t worry, lad, the Lord will provide.
- Oh aye, said me Dad,
- Ah wish I cud believe that, an all.
Cos he wunt a churchman at all
not like mi Mam,
he thoawt it wur all a lot o’ owd tosh.
Ony ah, mi Dad used to deliver milk,
well he did all sorts of jobs
but he liked working wi’ osses,
but it wuh for a pittance
and t’ farmer only let mi Dad do it to give him a job,
e cud ‘ave dun it hissen,
well he did often enough
before mi Dad took it on.
This morning, I wuh tellin’ thi about,
he set off on t’round wi t’farmer’s young lad
on t’ back step of t’float
The lad just wanted to go for a ride really.
Anyroad they wuh clatterin’ down this lane
when summat caught mi Dad’s eye.
He stopped t’ float and pointed.
-Sitheee, young ‘un what’s that shinin’in’t road?
Jump dahn and see.
The lad got dahn
and sammed summat up aht o’ muck
and browt it back to mi Dad.
-By Gow, lad, its awf a Crown. Well done.
They hadn’t gone abun another twenty yards
afore they stopped agen
and this time thuh wur a florin.
Dust knaw they fahnd seventeen and six
what wi’ one coin or another that morn.
Seventeen and six!
That wuh two weeks wages for mi Dad.
‘E reckoned some drunk
with a hole in his pocket ‘ad lost it all.
‘E finished ‘is rahnd,
gave the lad summat for ‘is trouble
‘and then ran ‘ome
trembling wi’excitement
to tell thi Grandma.
‘E could scarce get ‘is tale aht,
‘e wuh that excited and aht of breath.
Mi mother just rocked in ‘er chair
lissnin to ‘im goin’ on
then stood up and straightened ‘ er pinny and said,
-Ah told thi the Lord would provide.
Me dad just laughed and shuk his ‘ed.
Anyroad next morning
‘e wuh on his rahnd agin .
on ‘is own this time,
and when as he was filling a jug
‘e heard from next door,
which was ajar, this owd man’s voice.
-Lord , ah hunger. Send mi fooid, I beg.
Thi Grandad laughed quietly.
-Owd fooil him to think that ony God
might give him bread,
then all of a sudden ‘e bethowt hissen.
‘E tied t’oss to a lamppost
and legged it home through t’ churchyard
to where mi Mum wuh bakin’ bread
for’t fust time in a week.
-Sithee, gi' me a cob, look sharp!
Owd 'enry's praying for fooid
Ah sall hev mi joke on im, tha'll see."
He took the loaf back to Owd 'enry's house.
Th’owd man was still knelt in quiet prayer
by his table in t’cold kitchen.
Mi dad put t’loaf by side of ‘is bent head
wi’ a jug of milk besides
and stood back in’t shadows and waited.
T’smell o’ new bread got to owd ‘enry
for all of a sudden ‘is head snapped up
and his eyes popped aht and ‘is jaw dropped.
‘e raised ‘is ‘ands to t’sky.
-Oh! Thank you, Lord
This gift of thine bestowed upon me
hungry and alone."
-Nowt at'sort, thi silly owd loon!
thi grandfather scoffed, steppin’ aht into’t leet.
-It was no Lord of thine.
Ah browt thi bread,
aye, an'yon milk too.
The joke's on thee, ‘enry.
Owd ‘enry wagged his finger,
"Ah! Tha browt t’ cob
and tha browt yon milk besides,
ah can believe that an all,
but t' Lord ed putten thowt i' thi 'eead, tha knoas."
-Nowt at sort, silly owd bugger thee,
said mi Dad and left the old man to his breakfast
while ‘e finished ‘is rahnd..
Later, he finished the tale with mi Mam,
as she rocked beside t’fire
-Silly owd sod!
The Lord 'ed putten it in mi 'eead, he sed.
My mam rocked and rocked
and stroked her pinny flat;
-Aye, well, an 'appen he did,
if truth bi known, she said.
A lovely story Arthur. Maybe it was the hand of the devil though. Your dad was full of devilment and fully intended to have sport at Henry's expense, which he did. Maybe the devil thought it was small enough payment to bring pain to a human. The reality is, it was just human nature, and too good an opportunity for an iconoclast, like your dad, to pass up.
I loved some of the words though........a long time since I heard "pined bowlegged".
I myself had a wonderful experience. I was on my way to the Lord Rodney after night school. It was dark, about 9.00 pm, and there was a light rain. I had just taken inventory of my wealth. I had 1 and 4p, and a large tab end. A pint of bitter at the time was 1 and 3. I was dying for a fag, but I wanted a pint too. I had pretty much decided on the pint and trying to cadge a smoke, when...........something caught my eye on the muddy pavement.......... a muddy, wet rumpled piece of paper. I walked on past it a good ten steps, but there had been something funny about it. I decided to go back and look at it. It was a pound note! I couln't believe it! I felt sorry for the poor bugger who had lost it but it certainly brightened my life! I walked on air the rest of the way to the Rodney, ordered a pint of bitter, 20 Senior Service and a box of Swan Vestas. Life was good, but I didn't thank the lord for it. Surely he wouldn't have taken from the other sod to make me feel good!
My father always used to describe his dog as "raight wick" or a "wick un", I always thought it was a contraction of wicked because it was an evil little bugger until I learned it was dialect for lively. He always called a dressing gown a lambing gown.
The car drew up,t'winder slid down and US voice
astabart Hay-worth. Astudied.Abithowtmisen.Ah yermean ourth. * Grandmother called it laidin can; Grandfather filled it reight te top soaz dog could sup. It were nobbet little wi a short neck. * My mother once related that a bloke said to my father, in India in WW2: "you're from Keighley, are'nt you?" He had to admit it.* Often heard in the office in the early 70's: Jwantowtfra t'shop? * Relivo, stroke a bunny, kickcan and Chinese torture [in the park]. * couldn'nt thoil it.~wasn't worth the money. * starved~frozen daft * kapt~ surprised * chewing t'fat* scon & chips with scraps * And finally: dabs~ small [new] potatoes fried in batter.
Sorry, computer illiterate. DARE NOT RISK LOOSING THIS. PS Dog dint drink mucky wotter.
In my later years I could not sustain "roarin' 'is eyes out" as a Yorkshire (even Kegley) metaphor. I got used in Keighley folk-talk to the mixing of metaphors but this was something else. "Roarin'" has to do with sound and "eyes"(eyen)) has to do with sight.Could this be an early intrusion of Shelleyan synaesthesia into the local dialect? I never regarded my dad as a synaesthete but he used the expression with a frequency. His dad came to Keighley from Aston via Hull. The nearest a Shelley came to Keighley was Mary's trip to Whitby (although we had frequent bad Winters). Could there have been a seismic culture slip which fed this poetic device into our local dialect - into the mouths of mams and dads - such that "roarin' 'is eyes out" was a frequently used term to describe the din created by half-starved bairns,lodged in their prams, whilst their mothers queued at the tripe stall in Low Street market. Yet another startling mystery from Aireworthland.(This term is copyrighted)
Terry I appreciate your erudition, but I think you are capable of making a pot ov tay fo' 20 fowk out ov a single tay leaf.
"Roarin'" refers to the anguished moaning and sobs one makes when one is being demonstrative in the process of crying.
It's nowt to do wi' t'eyes.
Nathen, sitha!
Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-1957
Current location (optional) Tinseltown, the land of the lotus eaters, and all things inconsequential.
"Rooar'd 'is ('er) eeyn up", is the expression I recall. As I was exposed to the dialect some 10 miles from Keighley, however, this may account for the difference.
Just a short extract from a book on the 'Bronte Country' by Peggy Hewitt, concerning old Timmy Feather of Stanbury, a handloom weaver and 'clog dancer of some renown'. He was baptised by the Revd. Patrick Bronte at Haworth in January 1825 and lived in a state of bachelor chaos. When he learned he was to receive an old age pension he was amazed. 'Well, Aw niver knew nowt like it', he remarked. "They browt a looad o' coils afoor Cursmiss, an' now five shillin' i't week as long as Aw live! An' Aw've done nowt for nawther on 'em ". Timmy died in 1910 being the the last of the handloom weavers in the area.
Is a closet winger someone with a secret desire to play on the wing or did you mean closet whinger?
I was talking to a woman from Bridlington the other day, discussing the "good old" days when she told me that her grandad had built her a buggy when she was little. My thoughts were of a horse and cart sort of thing until she told me that it was made with pram wheels and you steered it with a piece of string attached to the front axle. It dawned on me that buggy and bogey must have the same origin, because she had just described a bogey to me.
Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-61
Current location (optional) Blue Mountains, Australia via Haworth
In Silsden, the land that time forgot, a bogie was always referred to as a flat cart. Bogeys (in Silsden at any rate)never had wheels on. None of the ones I hauled out did anyway.
When I taught young children they were amazed that, when we were children, we all had bogeys to play with. They must have thought that we were REALLY poor in those days.
Similarly the young Punjabi-speaking children I taught were astounded that we kept a budgie in a cage (budgie being the Punjabi word for IW's bogie.)
Hi Trevor-A bogey was both of those- the billy cart and the stuff you dragged from your nose--------- there was of course the bogey man!!!!!!! Cheers.
C'mon the Cats eh Trevor?
Anyone remember hearing the word,'raffle-coppin'? [Ne'er-do-well]
I came across it reading 'By Moor and Fell in West Yorkshire' by Halliwell Surcliffe. It's one I cannot recall but it was obviously in use in the Haworth area in the 1890's. I don't think it formed part of my fathers' vocabulary, which was rich in dialect. It is used in the following extract which gives an interesting insight into the percieved value of education amongst some inhabiatants of Haworth.
"Well? What hest'a to say for thyseln?" growls the father opening the door to his son late on a cold , wet night.
" Nowt, father - I've been studying." [at George Cockroft's private school at Oxenhope]
"Studying? An' to think tha comes o'godly parents - christened an' all; nay get thee to bed lad! I'm feared tha'll be nobbut a raffle-coppin yet."
Thanks John, but it looks like too much 'ard wark t' sift thro' yon lot! I was hoping that one of the experts like Arthur Seeley or John Joseph Waddington-Feather might know something.
The Morley Community Archive (www.morleyarchives.ik.com)gives the following definition - RAFFLE-COPPIN, a loose, vagrant, turbulent fellow - but gives no indication of origin.
That kept you well occupied this morning Shaun. I commend you for your efforts.
Am I correct in thinking that no one has yet metioned 'Bletherhead' or 'to blether' as in talk a lot and say nowt?
And 'Brussen'? "'Am fair brussen", was a favourite expression used by older male family members after enjoying Christmas dinner.
Perhaps the same term - blathering - was used round our way as a noun as in - Stop thee blathering - usually used to young kids roaring and talking at the same to time to voice some feelings about an assumed injustice - when it all comes out in a wet,sobbing mess of verbiage.
We just had a relatively cold snap in the Mountains where I live. I thought that it might be nice to light the fire, so without thinking, I said to my wife, "Ah'm off proggin' ".
Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-61
Current location (optional) Blue Mountains, Australia via Haworth
A word I haven't seen mentioned yet on this thread, is 'addle', which means 'to earn' e.g."'Owst'ee addle 'is brass?"= What does he do for a living?
Also, with regard to the German/Anglo-Saxon connections, we have the word 'bahn',as in 'Weer wasta bahn when Ah saw thee?(Ilkla Moor Baht'at)which relates to the German 'Bahnhof' and 'Autobahn',as modes of travel.
I coincur with Shaun and PL on Ilkla' Moor, but David's is an interesting alternative. I guess its just possible that 'our' version is a corruption of an earlier version like Davids. (or vice versa)
I'd always imagined "bahn" to be a corruption of "bound" as in, for example, "Ahm just bahn fer a pint (lass)".
Similarly "b'aht" would seem to stem from "be-out", an alternative to "without".
Of course, it goes without saying, I could be entirely wrong about any or all of this!
Incidentally, I too concur with Shaun's version of "Ilkley Moor" but, like Brian M., find the alternative even more appealing.
Could it be that our latest posters have been confusing (in their recollections at least) different lines from the famed anthem. ie The second verse swings along to the jaunty lyric "Tha's bahn to catch thi deeath o'cowd".
How do you pronounce that "nowt" in "Hear all, see all, say nowt"?
Does it rhyme with "out", as the OED suggests, and as suggested by the rhyming proverb: When in doubt, do nowt?
Or do you, like me, pronounce it to rhyme with "cowd" in "Tha's bahn to catch thi deeath o'cowd" and with "fowk" in "There's nowt so queer as fowk"?
What example of a non-dialect word could a dictionary give to get across this second pronunciation?
Well I think in Keighley it certainly wasn't rhyming with 'out' ! More with 'cowd' (for cold). It really grates with me when I hear someone on telly rhyme it with 'out' , they even did that sometimes on 'Last of the Summer Wine' but maybe thats how they pronounce it in Holmfirth !
I think, Gareth, you have hit upon a "unique" Tyke vowel sound which is probably peculiar to the experience of most (but not all) lads of KBGS (certainly not Barlickers). I cannot find a dictionary word that equates in sound. If I say it is peculiar to the Aire / Worth valleys, there will no doubt be some who would dispute that and prove me wrong. We do have old boys who are prominent in Yorkshire dialect societies. Their input would be interesting - if corrective.