I've been clearing out more books and found this little book among some other Suffolk books.
Work these out..............
Airy Wiggle Fourses
Backus Goose-gog
Bag-up On the drag
Biggety Phoebe
Bor A push
Carr Rile
Chaites Slivva
Crome Tilt
Ewe ( not a female sheep!) Ul
Watering
Airy Wiggle is an Ear-wig
Backus is the scullery built on at the back of a house
Bag-up is a cow,sheep or goat just before calving or kidding - when the udder is filling up with milk
Biggety - bit of a show off. A Biggety-B****r was someone who thought he was better than others!
Bor - Used as a greeting between male friends " How you gettin' on bor?"
Carr - small wood or copse near water
Chaites - left over food
Crome is a garden tool with prongs at right angles to the handle
Ewe - owed " I ewe him a fiver"
Fourses - like elevenses but around 4o'clock in the afternoon, needed during harvest and haymaking when long hours were worked out in the fields
Goose-gog is a gooseberry
On the drag is running late for something
Phoebe is the sun
A push is a boil
Rile means annoying.
A slivva is a splinter of wood in your finger
A Tilt is a tarpaulin
Ul is Suffolk for 'you will' or I will
Watering is where a steam is shallow enough for a road to go through it.
Are they Suffolk words or used everywhere? I have no idea!
If you watched Antiques Road Trip on Tuesday afternoon you would have seen the two antique experts motoring around the bit of Suffolk where we lived for so many years. Phillip Serrell was at the Long Shop Museum in Leiston and the man there was demonstrating the use of a stirrup pump and said you put it in a pail. Mr Serrell said " hang on, that's what we call a bucket isn't it?" We always had a spade and pail for the beach when I was little, never a bucket. So is pail a Suffolk word too?
Back Tomorrow
Sue
Jack and Jill went up the hill
ReplyDeleteTo fetch a pail of water . . . so fairly well known. I know and sometimes use goose-gog, rile. Ul is surely another way of spelling 'you'll'? Is 'backus' 'Back-house'?
Very interesting
xx
Of course - Jack and Jill! I forgot about them and their pail!
DeleteYes I guess Backus would be shortened Back House- a bit stuck on the back of a house for the sink
My Mum (we're from west London) always called gooseberries Goosegogs. The only other one I've heard of is 'on the drag'.
ReplyDeleteI learn something new all the time from your blog posts, thanks!
I thought Goose-gogs was wider than Suffolk. I think this book isn't too accurate
DeleteI lived in West London for nearly 80 years and I always remember I would say goose-gogs..
DeleteHazel c uk
My mum still says 'ewe' in that context and I'm forever saying 'you owed, mother'! She also says 'gorn into town' instead of going. I hear 'on the drag' a lot too. Some of those are new on me though, never heard the sun called that.
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly, I've still got my Suffolk accent, but I try to avoid those particular suffolkisms. Though I'm known to rile people on a regular basis! ;o) xx
p.s your Suffolk accent was delicate.
xx
Is delicate good or bad? :-) My brother-in-law is still very broad Suffolk.
DeleteI know I've heard Phoebe from either my Grandad or Col's Dad - long time ago
it's good :o)
DeleteMy family used goose-gog and rile. My mum's from the East Riding of Yorkshire and my dad from the West Riding. I still use rile.
ReplyDeleteI thought they probably weren't all just Suffolk.There are several dozen words in the book I've never heard at all
DeletePail and spade for us when we were children. Liked trying to guess what the dialect words mean-thank you.
ReplyDeleteJoy reminded me about Jack and Jill so pail isn;t just local!
DeleteThey mostly sound like Norfolk to me.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is a book of Norfolk words like my little book. We could see how many were in both
DeleteMany if not most of these words are in everyday use here. We have road signs with "slow you down bor" in the villages. We use rum a lot, as in "thass a rummin" or "that's a rum job" when something not very nice has happened to someone etc. My family are quite broad and my P was very broad Norfolk.
DeleteI say Guzgogs for gooseberries and I use the word rile..as in when someone riles me up!.I noticed your accent as well.It sounded so soft and gentle!.Although Im from Leicester,my Dad was Staffordshire and he never really lost his accent.We still say ...Dunna do that...as in Dont do that.It inna...it isnt...,cause thats what we grew up hearing!.The Leicester accent is dying off now,the younger ones dont seem to have it.But us older people do!xx
ReplyDeleteWe say " someone riled me" rather than riles me up so a bit different use of the same word.
DeleteThis is so interesting to here how many are not just Suffolk words at all
We say guzgogs in Wiltshire too. Our local name for earwigs is snorty pigs!
ReplyDeleteSnorty pigs! wonder how that originated
DeleteBrought up in Somerset, the only one I knew was goose-gog's
ReplyDeleteDefinitely widespread
DeleteYup, goosegogs in Hampshire too and with a z in Devon. Heard of being riled, pail is familiar, carr is a word I know from archaeology - Star Carr in Yorkshire. Wet woodland - often with lots of Alder growing there. We have lots of areas like that in our part of the world here. I've heard bor too . In Devon dialect it would by "buhy".
ReplyDeleteSounds like everywhere has goose-gogs maybe because they date back a long time and every garden had a gooseberry bush
DeleteOver time the ancestors from my dad's side of the family crept up country for work from neighbouring Cambridge area and eventually settled in Lincolnshire and then my Gran and Grandad somehow ended up in Sheffield, so in our family we have a mixture of local words from both your area, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire that seemed to have been passed on down the family.
ReplyDeletePhoebe is an interesting one - it means bright one so maybe this is why it is used for the sun in your parts.
Phillip below has quoted Phoebe from Shakespeare
DeleteI’m Suffolk born and bred and there is a different dialect sound depending on which part of the county you are in. Travel and working away is no new thing so words travelled too. I’m mistaken for Devonian, Norfolk and even Australian!??
ReplyDeleteThe Lowestoft accent is completely different to other bits of Suffolk
DeleteThe Lowestoft accent is the worst of the Suffolk accent merged with the worst of the Norfolk accent. Speaking as a born and bred Lowestoftian
DeleteGoosegog and rile used by us as well. On the huh/huff for lopsided. Gozzed/gozzing for men spitting.
ReplyDeleteEwe Yuck never heard the spitting thing.
DeleteCharlie haylock a man who does talks on Suffolk words and stories wrote a book called "Sloightly on the huh". I forgot about that
Gozzing for spitting here too.
DeleteFALSTAFF Indeed, you come near me now, Hal, for we
ReplyDeletethat take purses go by the moon and the seven
stars, and not by Phoebus,...[i.e. rob at night rather than the day when the sun is out]
[Henry IV Part One, W. Shakespeare]
Ah good old Shakespeare - he must have visited Suffolk!!
DeleteOn the drag and rile!
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be known quite widely
DeleteI love words and would be sorry if dialect died out.
ReplyDeleteGoosegogs I think is quite common and widespread. Pail? We said 'bucket and spade' but I've always thought of bucket and pail as interchangeable. Someone quoted Jack and Jill but there's also 'There's a hole in my bucket'. Remember that one?
When is a bucket not a bucket!?
DeleteI remember the song - Ed stewpot saturday morning childrens radio had all sorts of songs that have now disappeared.
I only knew goosegog, but then I left East Anglia when I was three! I've got a similar book of Sussex language. It's fascinating isn't it!
ReplyDeleteArilx
Way over the other side of the country here in Gloucestershire we also have 'goosegogs' - although I think it's perhaps dying out now. People also get 'riled' or 'riled up' - so much so that I never thought of that as a local term anywhere - I would have said that it was a standard word.
ReplyDeleteOne of the phrases which people quote as being used in the Forest of Dean was/ is 'Ow bis o'but?' - 'How are you, my friend?' - I am Gloucestershire born and bred but had never heard this until around 15 years ago when a customer said it to me over the phone - I almost squealed with delight at hearing it be used!
I love local words. When I was at college in Dorset I remember interrogating fellow students as to whether they knew what 'daps' were (black canvas shoes worn for PE - plimsoles) - I found that it was used as far over as Oxford and down to Bristol but no-one else really knew the word.
My eldest is doing a module this year in her degree on forensic linguistics - I must ask her if it covers things such as this, as I'm not sure what it entails!
We always called them daps, and 'ow bis' was heard regularly until a few years ago. I'm in Wiltshire.
DeleteI enjoyed your local lingo. We use pail and bucket. You're so lucky to have been born in that part of the world! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)
ReplyDeleteFun to read your column today from another born and bred in Suffolk! I never thought of 'slivva' as not being a proper word but indeed the online dictionary doesn't recognize, it prefers 'splinter'.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about my accent other than people do not recognize where I currently live, often guessing Australian.
As a Suffolk girl in Canada I'm often asked if I'm Australian. as you mentioned in your previous post i think we structure our sentences a bit differently. I know sometimes I get quizzical looks from people. When my strong Suffolk speaker sister in law was visiting I put up a translation sheet on the fridge for my Canadian husband and children. Bor, I think is old English for neighbour from nearest (nay or nigh) freeholder or peasant.
ReplyDeletesome of those sound like what the American SE slang is like too. Though I am from the Pacific North West of the USA I've become familiar with them through the ol' movies that I love to watch, black and white movies, wi' all the local words as is.
ReplyDeleteWe have always called gooseberries goose gogs. Don't use any of the other words around here on Essex Herts border. We have always said bucket and spade for the beach. I love dialects so sad if they die out.
ReplyDeleteThe only one I knew was goose gog. So it was a joy to visit and learn so much.
ReplyDeleteLove this! Hadn't even realised 'on the drag' wasn't used anywhere else until I left Suffolk lol. 'squit' is another word I don't hear much. Don't forget 'shew' or 'driv'
ReplyDeleteYou mention an RSPB book after reading my blog about the Literature Festival at Ilkley. The book is Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather and is about the Victorian fashion of decorating their hats with birds and thus killing thousands of quite rare birds. It was a fascinating talk. The hard back costs twenty pounds I think - whether it will ever come out in paper back I don't know.
ReplyDeletesome of the same dialect words are still used in Lincolnshire , a lot from old English and Norse , but once upon a time before the draining of the fens these were all very isolated places and language didnt move along at the same pace as elsewhere .
ReplyDeleteI know Phoebus is the Greek name for Apollo and is used as a poetic name for the sun. It can be heard in a song recorded by Ashley Hutchins of Fairport Convention and the Albion Band and in the singing of Lal and Mike Waterson
ReplyDelete