More Yorkshire dialect

After writing about Yorkshire dialect I had a good response from local people who are also interested in the words we use.

Pauline Stainton of Goole wrote,


"Having been raised in a new mining community that was populated with an influx from Nottinghamshire, Durham & Welsh coalfields, I’m never sure where my own personal vocabulary comes from, but I had heard the word  ‘taffled’  from our old neighbour at Rawcliffe Bridge. Although, she’d lived up here most of her life, Mrs R was born in Somerset & she’d never lost her Zummerzett twang. She used some strange expressions too  and I didn’t always understand her and I’d walk into our house totally flummoxed.

My old dictionary [Wright’s Dictionary of Obsolete & Provincial English – published in Covent Garden, London in 1869] tells me that 'Sile' comes the Northern Counties including siling- dish as a milk-strainer.  Up here, 'teem' was to empty something, presumably like teeming water from a bucket. 

I’d not heard of a 'cockstride' until I saw your blog but would you believe it the dictionary gave almost the same explanation  - 'Country folks say at Twelfth-day, "The days are now a cockstride longer".

The while / until conundrum took some thinking about.  My old dictionary confirms that in the late 19th century, Yorkshire folk were saying ‘while’ when they meant ‘until’. I will admit I probably still use it wrongly in speech – most of us do locally – but I hope I use it correctly when I’m writing."

Thank you Pauline both for writing this and also for allowing me to put this on the blog.

Meanwhile my friend Bill Wroot who grew up in Reedness was interested in the word galleyboke[s] in the previous post. He said that old farmers, when talking about a crop would often say  that it was 'galleyboke high'.

And I found myself using another dialect word today. I still have a cough from an earlier cold and I said that it was not a bad cough - only a 'little peff', meaning a slight cough.

Any more offerings??    

East Yorkshire dialect

I have always enjoyed listening to those people I know who still use out local dialect quite naturally. And having been brought up in the area around Howden I too still use some dialect expressions myself - although unless someone tells you that you are doing so how do you know?

One expression commonly used in our family is  'all taffled up' when describing maybe a ball of string or recently the heap of cable and Christmas lights we had pulled out of a cardboard box. It is a version of tangled up and is apparently peculiar to Yorkshire. I am not sure even if  it is only used in East Yorkshire.

Another discussion I had recently, after looking at the weather,  was about words meaning raining. I said 'it's teeming down' which I do not think is East Yorkshire dialect but then someone else used the phrase 'siling down' which I think is.

A sile is  derived from the Scandinavian word for a sieve and a local farmer's wife once told me that it was used of a particular type of sieve in a dairy where the milk ran straight through - hence it's raining heavily.

I could probably think of many more but here are just  a few phrases and words which I know, some of which are from my childhood but many of which I have heard used in the last few months - can you add any more?

it's slape - slippery

that fire is up to the galleybokes [one of my father's from Driffield, describing a fire piled with coal almost up to the gallows balk, which was what a hook hung on and from which a pot hung]

it's wick - meaning alive, often with fleas although a visitor once asked me if a particular cable was wick [live - ie had power through it]

goodies - sweets, although people from West Yorkshire often refer instead to 'spice'

drinkins - the drink taken out to farm workers in mid morning, sometimes also called 'lowance'

flitting - moving house

bairns - children

I will finish with what is supposedly a true story about Yorkshire road and rail signs. I will leave readers to check how true it is!

Several road signs had to be changed after Yorkshire people were  very confused by those at bridges and rail crossings which read 'Do not cross while lights are flashing'. Locally the word 'while' means until - e.g. 'wait there while I come back'.

Meanwhile I will take Molly out for a walk across the claggy field, returning all clarty having walked through countless slop holes but grateful that at least it is now a cockstride lighter.

Country notes

I have just been looking in my greenhouse where my seed potatoes are looking very wizened and sickly.  It just never seems to stop raining at the moment. The plot where the potatoes are going is rotovated and ready for them but we never seem to get a dry spell which coincides with my having a bit of spare time.

At least we now have plenty of logs to keep us warm in this miserable weather. Robert came last weekend and sawed down  two dead elms and some elder bushes. Locally they are always referred to as 'bottery' bushes or 'blummin ole bottery' and grow like weeds. They take their dialect name from the phrase 'bore tree' as when they are dried out the centre becomes hollow and in country areas the smaller trunks were sometimes used as simple water pipes.

As I was outside looking at the trees I heard the cuckoo - once so common but now quite rare. My mother always quoted the rhyme,

 'The cuckoo comes in April and sings its song in May.
 In the middle of June it changes its tune and in July it flies away'.

This is a very old rhyme but possibly less popular today as fewer people hear this evocative sound and thus have no opportunity to quote the verse.

In the meantime I am working on making DVDs of some of my old photographs so that even those without computers can look at old pictures of Goole, Howden and the surrounding areas. They will be for sale at £5 each, initially at the family history day at the Goole Waterways museum on Sunday [13th May].

East Yorkshire landscape

We are in the news at the moment with features on BBC Countryfile and the opening of David Hockney's new exhibition at the Royal Academy based on the East Yorkshire landscape.

East Yorkshire is described as an undiscovered but beautiful area - those of us who live here already knew that. Much of the coverage too is of the Yorkshire Wolds and not of our flatter and more arable landscape.

Where we live we are dominated by watercourses, much like some areas of Holland. There is the fast-flowing Ouse, the Derwent, the Aire and the Don (although the Don is the Dutch River as it flows through Goole). Also vital is the smaller River Foulness, known locally as the 'Foonah', as well as countless large drains, with their massive clough doors which stop the water running back in at high tide.

The land is rich and fertile and there are some lovely local walks. I walk Molly every morning not far from home. This morning it was both sunny and frosty and a pleasure to watch a big hare running across the frosty field.

The following pictures were taken two days ago and this morning.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve, grey, cold and damp but nothing like the Arctic conditions of last year. We have now passed the shortest day (21st December) and when my mother and I used to write Country Notes in the Goole Times we always took pleasure in explaining that from now on the days are 'a cockstride' lighter.

East Yorkshire dialect has many of its roots in country lore and in the language of our Norse ancestors. Words such as 'bairn' (a child) and flitting (moving house) would easily be recognisable to them.

I enjoy listening to such dialect speakers and probably use dialect words myself without knowing. I do remember a visitor asking if a cable was 'wick' and being puzzled until I realised he meant  'was it live?' in the sense that a dog could be 'wick with fleas'!

We are feeding the birds with fat balls, beloved of blue tits and with kitchen scraps. But now we have Molly there is little left. Yesterday she enjoyed much of the rind of a butternut squash.

Tomorrow we shall be going to church at Laxton in the morning - my daughter plays the organ for the service - and then to family for Christmas dinner. I hope all blog readers enjoy their Christmas.