History and Language in Oldbury, Worcestershire - Part Four

[Dennis]

...continued

Talk given in Oldbury on 15 May 2012

‘E’s thin as a lath; ‘er’s as big as Mary Gould; ‘e’s got a nose bigger than old Ned Cutler (Oldbury characters?).

Keep tekin’ no notice: yome as good as them as is no better. Reassurance - cf. nil carborundum!

It’s cold enough for a walking stick. Very cold.

‘E wants coal crackin’ on ‘is brow. He’s done a stupid thing.

‘Ark at im; it’s odds to what ‘er says : listen – hark at; odds to – the opposite of, archaic English.

‘E’s given it neck – given up, lost the will to live. One clean shairt’d see ‘im off. ‘es curled ‘is toes up. And of course to join Jack Lee’s Christmas Club… (Oldbury funeral director!)

‘E’s lost his appetite and found a donk’s (donkey’s).

It ay worth a blast on ‘Onker Braidley’s [i.e. a local ragman’s] trumpet = worthless

And many more… Right, then how about objects? Many are no longer part of our lives today – from the world of canals, coal fires, coalmining, outside privies, washhouses, horses…

Cut, of course, the old 18th c. word for canal, a cutting dug out.

Bat: a piece of slatey coal cf. Blackbat Mine in Whiteheath, perhaps. Also slack, nutty slack, small pieces of coal. ‘Nutty Slack’, affectionate nickname for a child.

Midden: muckheap, from Scandinavian. Also miskin, meaning the same or the structure to hold it, from Anglo-Saxon mixen, dung-heap, dung.

Snap: food, originally for miners; also tommy. And of course fittle, it’s bostin’ fittle. Late Latin, from vivere, victualia, things necessary to keep you alive, victuals.

Suck: sweets, gi’us some suck! (cf. spice in South Yorkshire)

Settle: a bench, usually wooden; also a brick table in a cellar, AS setel, seat.

Petty: in it stinks like a petty, outside lavatory, privy. French petit, a small place, cf. Mod. French le petit endroit. The Lar pom too! In earlier times privies were emptied by the night soil men.

Glede: live ember or burnt coal, from glow, glowed. ‘E’s got a vice like a glede under a doo-ar. In the morning you riddle the gledes in the fireplace to separate out any unburnt coal for burning.

Ess-hole: = ash hole in the grate, in a fireplace under a coal fire. The bars at the front of a cooking range were known as strides (as in the crossbars of a wooden gate, also strides). All gone now, no cooking ranges, and very few have coal fires!

Stave: a rung of a ladder.

Bobowler: large moth. As drunk as a bobowler, from a moth’s wild fluttering around a light. Also a macarabbit, indeterminate insect. Drunk, of course, was kay-li’ed, somebody who’d had

too much sherbet, as it were. Sherbet, kay-lie, perhaps from Arabic kali, potash, the ashes of a plant, saltwort, used in soap making.

Bostin’: fine, very good, it’s a boster, ay it? It could be linked to to burst, as in being buxom, ‘bursting out all over’ or perhaps from boast, ‘boast-worthy’?

Dolly peg: was the wooden stick for washing clothes in a dolly tub. The maid or maider was the wooden crown.

Bodge: to poke a hole through, as in making a peg rug with strips of old material. Not to be confused with:

Podge: to podge in, to queue-jump, probably from to poach.

Gulley, alley, narrow passageway. (Cf. ginnel: in the North a narrow passage, alleyway, perhaps from Norman French chanel, chenel (= channel).) Also: entry: goo up the entry, usually a passageway next to a building.

Blether: balloon (originally a pig’s bladder was used).

A bonk: a bank, as in a pit bonk, tocky bonk (tacky, sticky mud). Also tump, hump, hillock cf. Welsh twmp.

Fold: yard, area by house. Play in the fold (or fode), not in th’oss road, the (main) road used by horses.

Stonnies: marbles. Also marley, marlies.

Snicket: a latch on a door. Cf Yorkshire to sneck the door, to put down the latch to secure it.

Pudding bag: cul-de-sac

Poke: ‘e’s got some poke = money, perhaps as in a pig in a poke, a bag e.g. for money, purse.

Sad: of bread or pastry, not risen.

Tay: tea, e.g. the tay masher, tea maker. Obsolete pronunciation, as in Modern French le thé:

“Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey,
Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea.”
(Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, 1712)

Cf. pronunciation: also peas as pays, speak as spake (e.g. oi cor spake proper, from Anglo-Saxon specan, sprecan, to speak) etc.

Yorks: string tied around trouser legs below the knees to prevent the trouser bottoms from trailing in mud (from yokes?)

Gansey: cardigan, jersey, from Guernsey, as is jersey from Jersey.

Lezzer:, meadow, lea, on the lezzers, Anglo-Saxon leasowes, meadow pastures.

Suff: sough, underground drain, gone down the suff. Standard English, although little used.

To make a modge or a hack, an ‘ack of something, do it badly.

Reasty: of food, gone off, rancid. Also ronk = rank, with an awful smell, foul. “O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven” (Hamlet).

Robble: it’s in a robble = mess, confusion, tangle cf. unravel.

To wag (it) : miss school, play truant.

Tun-dish: funnel (tun = barrel). Anglo-Saxon tun, from Medieval Latin tunna, perhaps from Celtic Gaulish. Cf. The Three Tuns pub in Sutton Coldfield.

Brahma: good chap (Hindu creator god), but often used ironically.

Wench: girl, woman. Chapwench, tomboy.

Keggy: ‘e’s a keggy = left-handed, cack-handed.

Ikey: stuck up, haughty.

Dubous-minded: twisted, crooked

Frowsty: seedy, insalubrious, dirty.

Hare-shorn lip: hare lip, shorn = cut, with a cleft.

Quarry: floor tile from quarrel, from Old French, originally Latin quadratus, square.

Chawl: cooked meat (from the jowl of a pig).

To fenague: to give up on a project. Cf Standard English to finagle, to cheat, perhaps from Old French fornier, to deny.

To dout: to put out (of a fire), ‘do out’.

To dowk: to duck down.

Abear: bear, abide, I cor abear ‘im = tolerate

Chicklings: chitterlings, pig’s intestines.

Bull: factory siren, hooter.

Bibble: pebble.

Afore: before

Any road up: anyway

Aysum-jaysom: fair and square, honest.

Bonny: strapping, large (of a baby)

Boss-or bunk-eyed: cross-eyed, with a squint.

Children’s games: e.g. ‘ollybees, also barley (barlay, Middle English = freely, unhindered, as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight); wack’osses, a form of group leapfrog against a wall, also known as polly on the mopstick; on, he’s on, for he’s it elsewhere, i.e. the one who has to look for the others in tick or tick on release, tig, or hide-and-seek. When he catches someone, the person who is on says to him: airky or acky one-two-three! The game is sometimes called I-erky. Baggy or bags I have it, said in laying claim to something.

Backarapper: a noisy piece of coal exploding on the fire, from the name for a firecracker.

To hivver and hover: hesitate.

A jack-bannock: stickleback, tiddler, small fish.

Jollop: laxative medicine.

Pailings: wooden fence

Pikelet: crumpet

Old Shaggy: the Devil? ‘I thought Old Shaggy ‘ad got me’. Or perhaps Death, or just a ghostly apparition?

To scraige: to graze skin.

Tat: second-hand items collected by a tatter, totter, rag-and-bone man. Tattin’ about, riding or walking about, on the moach, moochin’ about.

Wammel: mongrel dog, perhaps Anglo-Saxon hwaemelec or a corruption of animal.


© Dennis Wood 2012

[MarkCDodd]

Having a look at some of my Cutler photos.... we must all be related to Ned Cutler

My dad calls large moths "bowbowlers".

Gully is used in Australia quite a bit. The town next door is Ferntree Gully.

Tat, wench, cut, midden, to wag it, keggy handed, bonney, pailings and pikelet are all words my parents, and therfor my siblings and I, use .

Fascinating topic Dennis!!

I have seen a very similar dicussion on Aussie slang...of which we can, apparently, thank Welsh Miners for.

[Dennis]

Yes, gully is Standard English as a ravine or channel, and in Australia and NZ as a river valley, Mark, but not in the sense of an alleyway or passageway. I'm glad those words are still alive out there!

[mallosa]

Please note!

Since the recent changeover, we seem to have aquired a lot of 'gobbledegook' within Dennis's initial post.
Please bear with us, we'll get it sorted asap

San