Best regional words

Ems, I'm from Leeds and used to live next to a ginnel. A lot of Leeds expressions were food-related. A "special" was an extra-large fish from the fish + chip shop. If you didn't run to specials you could have a "fish cake" which wasn't the sort of mashed stuff you see in supermarkets but two layers of potato with a thin layer of fish, fried in batter. "Scollops" were as above but without fish. Kids would ask for "scraps", bits of fried batter which were scooped out of the hot fat (beef dripping, not vegetable oil) at regular intervals. Decent fish shops didn't sell pies, sausages or curry - that would have been an admission that their fish and chips weren't up to much. Piggish people would eat this with a "new cake", a huge flat bread cake which made a rather good pizza base when cut in two.

What about "Balti" - this is Urdu for "bucket" and I have also heard that this is the cooking style in "Baltistan" which is allegedly a remote corner of Pakistan. But I'm sure this originates from Birmingham!

Crumbs Neil, I remember all those phrases. I used to get really scallops and scollops confused.

The balti definitely was invented in Birmingham. That's where I went to university, btw.

Oi meesh, I've kifed a GTI. Hey chum, I have stolen a GTI. Kife is pronounced with the Ki from Kite. South Wales.

Not so clever now huh. I'm sure Gouri is not a big girl and even though I don't speak any Hindi I don't speak any urdu either. We've got Homa from GetEthical in our office. She speaks the lot!

What about this one from Scots: Watergaw = a fragmentary rainbow

I'm lost now.

$*)>>~{{!"$£%&)£"""%£$^%%&^%*@{~} you humans have not got long to go Planet zing

wow - years since I heard of scollops, or 'dabs' as they were also called. They were always so hot they burnt your mouth. And I recall hanging round waiting for scraps. I used to hate fat chips or home-made ones so scraps were heaven, being the chip without the potato.

it disnae take ms marple to see who posted the alien

i don't know if this is regional as I never heard anyone else ever say it, but my dad from up north used to say "what a powsy dress she's got on today" meaning doesn't she look frumpy! or scruffy. In my family the word 'common' was used often and would describe anything extraordinarily appetising looking, or sexually attractive.

Ladge, ladgeful, ladged up (hard 'A' sound): When something is ladgeful, it means that it is unfair, and also that it was meant to be unfair, embarrassing and and affront. To ladge someone up is to make them look like a fool, or embarrass them, on purpose. It implies that a step too far has been taken, if you are talking about yourself. If you ladge someone else up, you take them down a peg or two, humiliating them. gadgie: bloke, man Half-a-gadge: a particularly masculine woman. From Newcastle.

For he who is lost shall always be found Cos the times they are a changin'.

Mardy - bad tempered East Midlands Emmets - (literally: ants) Tourists Devon and Cornwall I bet Senor Beswetherick has some good ones.

My home county of Lancashire has many rich and unusual expressions. Here are a few. A 'Dirth' is a small dog which stands on one side of the road sneering at other dogs. To 'Snetterfutch' means to anxiously explain to a newsagent why you need 10 Bensons AND a packet of Rizzla. 'Gastcoodling' is to make your home inside your own guts. A 'Duchfrupie' is a collection of town councillors with the same skin disease. Should you find yourself in the middle of town at 2am wearing a kilt and drenched in motor oil you are said to have committed a 'Tensington'. 'Bigullintogling' is to set fire to your neighbour's hair whilst frying chips. And finally, to 'Nugga' is to pass a stool which bears a striking resemblance to Jim McCalliog.

Mardy isnt bad tempered though.. there is no real definition of it.. its just mardy!

I meant to say that Gouri was a BAD girl not a BIG girl! You can't properly transliterate Asian languages into English script without misunderstandings. I love reading English language newspapers in India - probably the only place in the world where police still "nab miscreants", where the cricket score is the most important item of world news and people placing "lonely hearts" adverts tell everyone exactly how much they earn!

Is a Gouri a bad girl, then? *curious* *sorry Stu, Liana taught me the asterix thing and I'm an addict...there, my name is Paul Greco and I'm an asterixaholic*

Hi Gouri, How ya doin'... Thanks for the mail. Just to let you know, I have a reputation for both BIG and BAD girls! *not single* :-(

Because i moved about so much, by the time i was 28(a couple of years ago) i had aquired this strange accent using dialect from all parts of the country, it was weird. No one could understand what i was on about. *Laughs*

Just to piss Stu off again. *poor etiquette*

imagine you could easily make a new language taking different areas dialectual slang words and well cooking up a new language. eg. Ma im scunerred and oor jessie is walking aboot in tha powsy. Son, stop been so mardy and wait till yer da s home and i tell him aboot yer brother kifing that car. I but ma thats a bit ladgeful he only went oot for a snitterfutch and this half-a-gadge gets oot her car and walks aboot like one of them Emmets, she was right common anaw and then well he just shouted oi meesh and drove of in to tha watergaw. Yeah.....

Excellent stephen! I do understand that mardy is not directly bad tempered but it was as close as I could get. Any better suggestions?

um Tony? Don't want to make you cross or anything but Emmets? Born and bred in the Westcounrty and I'm pretty sure we call tourists Grockles. Or maybe I'm the only one? *looks around expecting laughing and pointed fingures*

I think Grockles is more widely used in Cornwall whilst Emmmets is more in use in Devon but I have heard them both in both counties.

Freda, I had a laugh indeed but I am not a takla... its Tony. Great you have picked up Hindi so soon. Keep it up. Main tumhe bahut pasand karti hoon... I like you. Neil... I am not a bad girl... the usage of tu was wrong ... use tum or aap. I am a mahila and not a ladki... I dont belong to the young girls group anymore. Tum bahut bure ho... understand. Tony you can take some Hindi lessona from me. Do you want a Hindi teacher on ABC? I put forth my application. Grec, got your mail. Are you not interested in learning Hindi? Dont spoil my reputation here. I am good, Neil is bad. beswetherick, you will be found by this group. Freda, you get the highest marks.........100%

well! Thats what you get for being unobservent I guess. Next time I go home I'm gonna start slagging off the Emmets!!! You see if I don't ...lousy no good furriners... ruining the countryside...littering... wearing bermuda shorts.. shouldn't be allowed..grrr Cheers Tony!

Grockles, Emmets, Snitterfutch, can't beat Uk dialect for humerous words. Are there many English poets who write just in their own local dialect, or, any well known ones. I know theres a few in my city who just write Glaswegian, although i dont myself.

oh and traipsing, where does this come from.

Mardy is a difficult one isnt it? Its just mardy! Sulky, miserable, stroppy, deliberately obtuse?

I thought mardy was a softy or someone acting soft. "Mam me nose is running" he said in a mardy voice. "Use your hanky ya wet week" said Mrs Smith.

I am a languages teacher! Do I want to learn Hindi? you ask... As we English say - do bears shi.t in the woods? (That means: yes!) I know you're a good girl. The best. Teach me the full paradigms of the verbs "to be" and "to have first". Then hit me with some relevant nouns to go with them. Also, "to play". And some sports.

that's: "to have" first NOT "to have first" ...of course. Uncommon Punctuation Police slip up.

Im reliably informed in Lancs that mardy is soft.. wonder why it's different here?

No, "emmets" is Cornish and "grockles" is Devon. "Emmets" is not nice though, and only a minority of people are ignorant enough to use it. My favourite Cornish form of words is "where to?" meaning "where?". It can lead to odd sentencesentence structures: "where to is the gents?" I also like the way "her" is used as a subject pronoun: "Her was in here a minute ago"; and "he" as an object pronoun: "I'll soon sort he out". Trouble is that if you write these into stories they look like mistakes. The most difficult thing to render in stories, though, is "in" for him, which is very common: "Tell in to come over here". I've tried to represent it as "tell'n", or "tell en", form example, but there's really no lucid way of showing this form on paper. d.beswetherick

Sorry about the typos.

Paul, there's no Hindi verb for "to have" "I have a headache", "I have a car" and "I have three children" are different constructs. They would all use the verb "hai" - to be - but this is nasalised in the plural. There's a BBC book (and tapes?) called "Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal" also there's usually night school classes in Urdu in at least one location in Manchester. Gouri, I was being deliberately rude. Sorry.

LOL Gouri I am sure you're not a takla! It's a fun word I might be able to remember though. Main tumhe bahut pasand karti hoon too!

I am a headache. I am a car. I am (nasally) three children. How mad is that?! What if you were mentally ill, and you wanted to actually say, "I am a car." Not expressing that you have a car, but that you actually ARE a car... how would you go about that?

Say, Knight Rider was dubbed into Hindi. How would Kit say to Michael, "I am your car"? Without Michael thinking he was saying, "I have your car." Mass confusion. Michael might say, "You have my car? Where is it then?" And Kit would be like, "No, I AM your car!"

Mithered or mithering Brummie word meaning to be very bothered/worried by something.

Every time Grec says I'm a teacher, he doesn't fill me with the confidence I should have for the educational system, but that's another subject. The finest regional words are cockney rhyming slang. There's an alphabet and some of the phrases are used by people in all regions. It also evolves to take in modern, up to date phrases paper hat - prat Mickey duff - puff Johnny Giles - piles Frasier crane pain

That cracked me up. I live on the borders of Cornwall/Devon and when I first came to live down here, the following phrases always puzzled me........... "Where do you to be then from my lover?" "Where's that to?" Another one that always puzzled me... "See you later." Always said when leaving a shop or saying goodbye to a friend etc. I used to think...eh? I'm not seeing you later! Whereas of course the Brummie phraseology for that would be "Tara a bit!" Jen

They're emmets when they block up every road with their caravans! Ignorance or no (and I admit to lots of that as I've lived in many places but am not 'from' anywhere) it's a great word!

Mithered? we used to say 'stop moithering' (for fretting and worrying) which must be the same verb. And 'stop frigging about' meaning stop fidgetting, was used in polite conversation by people who would never swear. I woner if mithering and moithering stem from mothering; i.e. being over-protective?

this gets me into all those terms of endearment used by the little old lady in the sweet shop. When I was a kid in Macclesfield I was 'petal', when I moved to London I was 'mate', when I went to Devon I became 'my luvver', when we went to Nottingham the kids became 'our kid' and then in Leicester it was 'me duck' and in Brighton it's back to 'mate'. There must be more. Yours? Don't these things happen in other cultures - gouri? allen? nancy? nicoletta? justyn?

Gouri thanks for the kind offer. I am not a natural linguist but through much perseverance I have learned reasonable French. I am now on to the delights of Italian. If I take on another language then my little head will get too full of words and I'll just forget them all. Once Italian is mastered though (which could take some time) then Hindi will be next on my list!

My questions have been left hanging in the air, somewhat. I'm serious, you know...I demand answers!

Down here: Maid - female Me 'andsome - male, but can be female Me lover - either!