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Local sayings from yesteryear!


peterinfrance

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My daughter came over and gave my home “a good fettle””.

Fettling was/is a noisy, dirty process cleaning a casting in a foundry.Locally, any young lad getting a poorly paid job with little prospects was known as” foundry fodder”

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Following up on the "passing wind" theme. I cannot recall hearing "ripstitch" but it prompted me to recall "ripsnorter"

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If I or any of my siblings passed a silent but smelly trump, my mother would always say “ that one came out in carpet slippers”, I just took it to mean no audible warning, all that childhood banter and old sayings are gone but not forgotten.

😷😷

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While waiting for an elusive bus this morning a lady who was also waiting asked us the time of the bus to and from Crystal Peaks adding “ my daughter usually takes me in her car and when she finds out I’ve been by bus she’ll be chinning at me “ it’s been over sixty years since I heard “ chinning “ in a conversation, for those who haven’t heard it before it just means being told off, I suppose it relates to the chin going up and down while being told off, another great description lost.

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16 hours ago, tozzin said:

While waiting for an elusive bus this morning a lady who was also waiting asked us the time of the bus to and from Crystal Peaks adding “ my daughter usually takes me in her car and when she finds out I’ve been by bus she’ll be chinning at me “ it’s been over sixty years since I heard “ chinning “ in a conversation, for those who haven’t heard it before it just means being told off, I suppose it relates to the chin going up and down while being told off, another great description lost.

...but not lost, because she used it.

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I imagine a lot has to do with ones age. I use words and phrases which were commonplace in my youth but which my grandkids have never heard in their daily life.

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10 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

I imagine a lot has to do with ones age. I use words and phrases which were commonplace in my youth but which my grandkids have never heard in their daily life.

My point exactly.

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If perspiring heavily is “sweating cobs”, what are “cobs”?

Is that a local saying from yesteryear, as I seem to have heard lots of local people use it, for as long as I can remember?

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1 hour ago, RLongden said:

If perspiring heavily is “sweating cobs”, what are “cobs”?

Is that a local saying from yesteryear, as I seem to have heard lots of local people use it, for as long as I can remember?

There seem to be several explanations for the phrase. Others being unlikely.  The best are these: One being from the old word for Spiders - hence cobweb - sometimes seen with water drops on them. Secondly a word for horses that worked. So sweating like a cob (horse).  Others think that a cob was a round object - such as bread.

Personally the horse explanation sounds the best one to me. Especially when you look at horses after a race. Not many UK animals show sweat.

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7 hours ago, History dude said:

There seem to be several explanations for the phrase. Others being unlikely.  The best are these: One being from the old word for Spiders - hence cobweb - sometimes seen with water drops on them. Secondly a word for horses that worked. So sweating like a cob (horse).  Others think that a cob was a round object - such as bread.

Personally the horse explanation sounds the best one to me. Especially when you look at horses after a race. Not many UK animals show sweat.

I thought “ cobs “ were a reference to hazel nuts, I.e. size if the beads of sweat 😓 

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11 hours ago, tozzin said:

I thought “ cobs “ were a reference to hazel nuts, I.e. size if the beads of sweat 😓 

I did say any round object.

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On another web site recently, a poster used the term "racked off" in the sense of "fed up" or "cheesed off". This took me back half a century, as the last person I heard use it was a fellow-student at university. He was from Yorkshire, but I think further North than Sheffield; is anyone else familiar with the expression? Does anyone know its origin?

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40 minutes ago, Athy said:

On another web site recently, a poster used the term "racked off" in the sense of "fed up" or "cheesed off". This took me back half a century, as the last person I heard use it was a fellow-student at university. He was from Yorkshire, but I think further North than Sheffield; is anyone else familiar with the expression? Does anyone know its origin?

Well "racked" means in pain, so I guess people would have associated that with the torture device, though the persons who came up with the expression would have never been on one. They just sort of felt if they were on one with what they were doing. Or more likely just got off one! 

There is also the Australian phrase Rack Off, a polite way of swearing. Not to be confused with it. 

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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 “.

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I used to have friends in Mosborough years ago, and they used the word serry as a greeting instead of your name as in "Ey up serry, how's things?"

I've  seen it suggested that it's derived from the French word cherie, but whether that correct I've no idea.

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1 hour ago, Michael68 said:

I used to have friends in Mosborough years ago, and they used the word serry as a greeting instead of your name as in "Ey up serry, how's things?"

I've  seen it suggested that it's derived from the French word cherie, but whether that correct I've no idea.

On reading your post “serry “ is a better description.

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3 hours ago, Michael68 said:

I used to have friends in Mosborough years ago, and they used the word serry as a greeting instead of your name as in "Ey up serry, how's things?"

I've  seen it suggested that it's derived from the French word cherie, but whether that correct I've no idea.

I think it's a form of this:

Quote

Sirrah is an archaic term used to address inferiors, sometimes as an expression of contempt (but not as familiar). The term appears in several Shakespeare plays, such as Julius Caesar, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night and the Merchant of Venice and Titus Andronicus .

 

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11 hours ago, Athy said:

On another web site recently, a poster used the term "racked off" in the sense of "fed up" or "cheesed off". This took me back half a century, as the last person I heard use it was a fellow-student at university. He was from Yorkshire, but I think further North than Sheffield; is anyone else familiar with the expression? Does anyone know its origin?

Heard  "Hacked off" many times but never racked off 

 

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36 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

An old Sheffield saying:

“Oh dear what a life

Men work

Yet his wages go to the wife”

What a life in all it’s stages

we do the work

and the bosses get the wages.

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