Re: Old local expressions
 

Dressed up like a dog's dinner... a bit like mutton dressed as lamb!

Re: Old local expressions
 

He were pie eyed:D

Re: Old local expressions
 

I know another term which would be frowned on on here but means an idiot down under :rolleyes:

Re: Old local expressions
 

A sandwich short of a picnic

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Last time I tried it, I got my face slapped!

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I knew I wasn't the only one with a dirty mind on here.
Can't even guess what it means in Oz, Margaret(well, if I think about it!)
I knew I should have said 'tool box'.
Go on, someone will twist that too.

Re: Old local expressions
 

I was once in a Mall in Knox City(just outside Melbourne)........my niece was with me but in a different part of the shop we were looking in...she shouted 'Marg...where are you?'
I said 'I'm just rootin' round in this bin full of underwear'(cheap bra's knickers camisoles)...she came out of nowhwere and told me that I could't say that...and then whispered what it meant over there. I blushed!
As they say over there 'you can beat an egg, but you can't beat a root'.

Re: Old local expressions
 

Garinda's use of 'thisen' interests me. I hear nothing except 'thisel' in Accrington and it wasn't until I met up with people from other towns that I heard thisen' I have always thought it more Yorkshire than Lanky.

Re: Old local expressions
 

The say, I think, actually originates from the Doncaster area Bob, Lived with a woman who was born and bred in Donny and her parents used that saying all the time, meaning Yourself

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As children we would earwig on adult conversations.
If we asked who the grown ups were talking about, the answer was 'im in neet wit' rag arm'
Someone(usually female) who was no better than they ought to be, was said to be 'neawt a peauwnd, and muck's tuppence....and that's at bumpin' weight'

Someone with a loud voice was said to be able to 'whisper over three fields...Sheffield, Huddersfield and Chesterfield'

Re: Old local expressions
 

Some wonderful words and phrases in this glossary, published in 1875.

Full text of "A glossary of the Lancashire dialect"

Re: Old local expressions
 

Try this for a little light reading at bedtime, from 1748.

http://gredos.usal.es/jspui/bitstrea...alect_1748.pdf

:eek:

I should imagine it's a struggle, even for those of the broadest Lancashire accent.

To me it's like reading Spanish, which I don't really speak.

With just the odd word or two making sense.

Re: Old local expressions
 

Here gam means disabled through injury.

The Dialect Dictionary - Word Gam - Language your way

That's not how it was used where I lived.

Gam meant game/brave.

'He were reet gam, climbin' reet t'top o'that tower.'

Re: Old local expressions
 

The first song on this clip is a Lancashire protest song about poverty, written in dialect in 1790. (Recording of Alan Lomax singing it in 1951.)

Here are the lyrics.

I'm a four loom weaver, as many a one knows.
I've naught t'eat, and I've wore out mi clothes.
Mi clogs are both broken, and stockin's I've none.
They'd hardly give me tuppence for all I'm gettin' on
Ole Billy at Bent, he kept telling me long
We might have better times if I'd not but hold mi tongue.
Well, I've held mi tongue till I've near lost mi breath
And I feel in mi heart that I'll soon clem to death.
[Refrain]
Ole Billy's all right, he never will clem
And he's never picked o'er in his life.


The second song is a protest verse from Yorkshire, in a similar vein.

Though of course that's all gibberish, and can't be translated.

:D

Two Late 18th Century English Labor Protest Songs:" Four-Loom Weaver and "Fourpence a Day." - YouTube

Re: Old local expressions
 

I could make out some of it, but that lot was written in the 1700's, probably hearing it spoken it might make more sense. Waugh was one of the best at writing the Lanky dialect, as it was spoken in the 1900's.
Reading old documents from the 1100's to the 1800's shows a marked difference in spelling, which would also affect pronunciation.

Retlaw.