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Local sayings from yesteryear!


peterinfrance

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On 18/11/2021 at 12:04, tozzin said:

I’ve recently got a new neighbour, a pensioner, he was brought up around Marsh Lane, I’ve noticed that he says “ siree “ which I think is an old dialect word, I wondered if it’s the Derbyshire equivalent of my “ sithee “.

Certainly used in North Leicestershire, where it is pronounced "surry". I assume that, as suggested above, it derives from "sirrah", or "Siree" as the Americans say - so, a variant of "Sir".

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2 hours ago, Athy said:

Certainly used in North Leicestershire, where it is pronounced "surry". I assume that, as suggested above, it derives from "sirrah", or "Siree" as the Americans say - so, a variant of "Sir".

Oh don’t bring the Americans into this thread.😉😉😉

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Why not? After all many words we consider to be “Americanisms” actually stem from the English regional dialects and language that was spoken by early immigrants.

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4 hours ago, Lysanderix said:

Why not? After all many words we consider to be “Americanisms” actually stem from the English regional dialects and language that was spoken by early immigrants.

I dislike words imported from America being used as normal , only the other night I heard the word Heist said on the national news, theft or robbery has always been ok and don’t get me started on No Worries from Australia.

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Presumably you have the same view of words in regular use imported into our living language from places such as India?….”bungalow” being one such example.

Locally, our use of words and phrases imported from other parts of the country increased dramatically with the industrialisation and growth of the City….my own family tracing its roots in Victorian times from places as far apart as Drogheda to Grimsby….each bringing with them vocabulary and phrases to add to the rich mix of language.

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20 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

Presumably you have the same view of words in regular use imported into our living language from places such as India?….”bungalow” being one such example.

Locally, our use of words and phrases imported from other parts of the country increased dramatically with the industrialisation and growth of the City….my own family tracing its roots in Victorian times from places as far apart as Drogheda to Grimsby….each bringing with them vocabulary and phrases to add to the rich mix of language.

I just don’t like the use of Americanised words and please don’t read into my post something that’s not there , my family also goes back to goes back to Dublin, the Easter rising and a great uncle getting killed at Mouse Trap Farm in WWI. 
 

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Sorry ,but I didn’t realise I had read anything into your post that wasn’t already there…..and my mention  of Drogheda was no more significant than my mention of Grimsby….I used them to illustrate the places from where contributions came from to our dialect….I could have used Coventry and  Chester.

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8 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

Sorry ,but I didn’t realise I had read anything into your post that wasn’t already there…..and my mention  of Drogheda was no more significant than my mention of Grimsby….I used them to illustrate the places from where contributions came from to our dialect….I could have used Coventry and  Chester.

I don’t mind Drogheda at all, in fact I embrace anything to do with Ireland or Grimsby for that matter. My two great uncles I never met but I would love to have heard them talking, they both died fighting for different causes but that’s how it was, my wife is also Irish and I was surprised at the words that were in general use the first time I went over there over fifty years ago, I.e. press for cupboard, delf for crockery and a sign for school which read Scoil something I used which I picked up from my dad because he got it from his Dublin born parents.

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16 hours ago, tozzin said:

I dislike words imported from America being used as normal , only the other night I heard the word Heist said on the national news, theft or robbery has always been ok and don’t get me started on No Worries from Australia.

The trouble with heist is that it encompasses both theft and robbery, which in English Law are two separate  concepts.

Theft is used when stealing from a company for example stealing from premises. However if there is the threat of, or actual violence, then it would be robbery.

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When I was a school boy, my family all worked and I was the youngest by ten years so  there was not always anyone to take me to school from the age of seven, subsequently I had to get myself ready for school and hot water wasn’t always available in the mornings what with having a back boiler to heat the water so I admit getting my neck washed was no high on my list, but I was always being told by my mother or my sisters that I had a “ tide mark “ on my neck and embarrassment force me to wash away the dirt, well I’ve never heard of or seen a tide mark since the late fifties, aaah happy days.

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3 hours ago, tozzin said:

When I was a school boy, my family all worked and I was the youngest by ten years so  there was not always anyone to take me to school from the age of seven, subsequently I had to get myself ready for school and hot water wasn’t always available in the mornings what with having a back boiler to heat the water so I admit getting my neck washed was no high on my list, but I was always being told by my mother or my sisters that I had a “ tide mark “ on my neck and embarrassment force me to wash away the dirt, well I’ve never heard of or seen a tide mark since the late fifties, aaah happy days.

Yes, I recall "tide mark" being used in that sense when I was a boy in Sheffield - both by my mother and by a scoutmaster at a camp when the scouts were supposed to wash their hands, face, necks etc. thoroughly before a trip into the nearest town. We had, he said, clean faces but tide marks round our necks.

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1 hour ago, Athy said:

Yes, I recall "tide mark" being used in that sense when I was a boy in Sheffield - both by my mother and by a scoutmaster at a camp when the scouts were supposed to wash their hands, face, necks etc. thoroughly before a trip into the nearest town. We had, he said, clean faces but tide marks round our necks.

I'd had my head inside an old works central heating boiler vacuuming out the build up of soot! later on that morning standing in the canteen queue one of the factory workers an old guy from Barnsley shouted across, na then or yon I see thart wearing a Sheffield necktie.

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When I was an apprentice in the steelworks I would occasionally hear the training workshop referred to as the " chabbie's" shop.  The older lads would also mention looking for "charva" on their nights out, which I think referred to approachable young ladies.

More recently, the word 'chav' became common, usually connected with Essex.  Could these words all be related somehow?

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I seem to recall that a “chab” or “chabby”was a baby….so the training workshop was for kids. My late father in law who came from Carbrook was a regular user of said word.

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Just cooking my tea, so no idea why this saying came into my head ...

"Ashes of Puss Muck",

I'm not exactly sure what it referred to, was it something that smelt foul or was to do with the aroma of cheap perfume, or maybe the person that wore it?

Anyone else familiar with the saying?

 

 

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On 02/12/2021 at 14:47, tozzin said:

Where did “ acting the goat “ come from?

Perhaps because goats were reputed to be stubborn and bad-tempered? Butt (whoops) I'm not sure that this expression was strictly local. "Getting (on) my goat" is still more mysterious.

 

My Dad used to refer to a loud fart as a "ripstitch", presumably suggesting that the gas emerged with such power and velocity that it ripped the stitches of the guffer's trousers. He was a Derbyshire man; was this term used in Sheffield?

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Also "acting the giddy goat".  I'm sure this is not just local, but like Tozzin and Athy I don't have any convincing explanations.

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34 minutes ago, MartinR said:

Also "acting the giddy goat".  I'm sure this is not just local, but like Tozzin and Athy I don't have any convincing explanations.

My mother always said “ stop acting the goat “ when I was messing around or just being plain daft.

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6 hours ago, tozzin said:

My mother always said “ stop acting the goat “ when I was messing around or just being plain daft.

I think acting the goat refers to goats ( reputedly) not being very clever and them doing stupid things 

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2 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

I think acting the goat refers to goats ( reputedly) not being very clever and them doing stupid things 

I’ve yet to see a stupid goat or one that’s not very clever, looked after, fed regularly and usually kept as a pet, seems they have their proverbial head screwed on the right way.

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Yes, Goats are intelligent animals. Mind You, I've yet to see a drunken newt or dogs and cats dropping from the sky when it rains!

Wazzie Worrall

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Just now, Paul Worrall said:

Yes, Goats are intelligent animals. Mind You, I've yet to see a drunken newt or dogs and cats dropping from the sky when it rains!

Wazzie Worrall

Just who quoted these sayings originally that’s what I’d like to get to the bottom of, were they drunk at the time or had they actually experienced a drunk newt, cats and dogs raining down !

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7 minutes ago, tozzin said:

Just who quoted these sayings originally that’s what I’d like to get to the bottom of, were they drunk at the time or had they actually experienced a drunk newt, cats and dogs raining down !

Or stair-rods for that matter.

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