DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

Nice stones, I would be tempted!

[PanBiker]

I have been there and resisted the temptation.

[Tizer]

If I went there I'd be even more tempted to sneak away with a pebble if taking them is banned!

[Stanley]

One of the dead give-aways for a Saxon or earlier church site is the presence of small white round quartz beck pebbles... They would have loved that beach!

[Tizer]

White quartz pebbles have always fascinated humans. Collections are often found associated with Bronze Age and earlier settlements.

[plaques]

Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) had the Houyhnhnms , fictional race of intelligent horses, saying they couldn't understand why the Yahoos (humans) had this fascination for things that sparkled. I'm still of the opinion that people who pay thousands for a shinny lump of carbon are wrong in their heads.

[Tizer]

In most parts of the world humans in the past have been much attracted to gold but there is one group that wasn't - Australian aborigines. Gold nuggets were lying about on the ground when Europeans first got there. They had no attraction for the aborigines. When Europeans first went to South and Central America the local tribes had gold but they prized it for ritual use and never used it as a form of currency. Once the search for gold began a lot of stuff associated with it was thrown away. Among this was platinum-gold alloy which was regarded as useless until a method was found to purify the platinum. It soon went from being waste material to being treasure!

[Stanley]

Diamonds are very useful for dressing grinding wheels as they are the hardest material known even now after the utilisation of the carbides. Otherwise I agree with David.
Ever come across dottle? It's the last part of a charge of tobacco to burn in a pipe. I looked it up, From Middle English dottel, dottelle (“a plug or tap of a vessel”), a diminutive of Old English dott (> English dot (“a point”)), equivalent to dot +‎ -le. Related to Old English dyttan (“to stop up, clot”), Dutch dot (“a knot, lump, clod”), Low German Dutte (“a plug”).
dottle (plural dottles)
A plug or tap of a vessel.
A small rounded lump or mass.
The still burning or wholly burnt tobacco plug in a pipe.
(Geordie) A baby's dummy, pacifier.

[Cathy]

Here are some unfamiliar names for things we regularly come across:
Ullage - the unfilled space in a bottle between the liquid and the lid.
Drupelets - the bumps on raspberries.
Ferrule - metal band around pencil that holds rubber in place.
Caruncle - the triangular pink area at the corner of your eye.
Grawlix - the series of symbols to indicate curse words in a cartoon.

[Stanley]

I knew about ullage Cathy from my experience with bonded warehouses where the Revenue made allowances on duty for 'Ullage and spillage' Then there was 'the angel's share' which was the loss by evaporation through the wood of the barrel. The others are new to me.

[Whyperion]

As anyone who has watched QI, things like Blackberries and Raspberrys are not Berries ( defined as a seed encased in a outer soft casing ), but droops (or Drupes) where the individual seeds again are encased in soft casing, but is loosely joined to an adjacent casing or druplet.


Some twitter errors of hearing have occured in the news recently from politicians apparently (annoyingly I have forgotten two of them) One was re Brexit - to Button Down The Hatches - which caused me mental amusement of someone trying to large button into button-hole on the deck of a cargo ship ! I assume normally deck hold hatches have the normal lift up catches around the side - additional battening in times of predicted storms being needed if it is thought the catches wont stay fastened due to external forces of waves etc, or internal force of a shifting cargo ?

[Stanley]

I like typos and Button down the hatches is a good one.

[plaques]

Argy Bargy. like what's going on in Parliament. Do we only hear it in the North?

[Wendyf]

My neighbour has just told me that they will be 'spaining' the calves soon. (Spayning, spaening speyning??) I guessed what he was talking about because he was warning me it could be noisy for a couple of days.....

[chinatyke]

Poor little animals. Almost as bad as the fetish Jews have with their little boys and genital mutilation.

[Stanley]

He probably used a corruption of spaying. I suppose he meant castration or gelding.
" “Spay” is derived from the Anglo-Norman espeier (to cut with a sword), but it ultimately comes from the classical Latin spatha (a broad, flat weapon or tool) and the Greek spathe (a broad blade), according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology."
I came across one in Dorothy Hartley's book. 'Hindle Wakes'. Stanley Houghton used the name 'Hindle Wakes' for his 1912 play about family reactions to an affair between a mill girl and the mill-owner's son but Dorothy says it is the name of a Lancastrian way of cooking a hen. She offers 'Hen de la Wake' cooked at holidays (Wakes) and believes it was brought in by Flemish spinners who settled at Bolton le Moors. (Were they responsible for the place name as well?)
Argy Bargy. Not sure really but this: "late 19th century (originally Scots): rhyming jingle based on argue." suggests a Scottish origin.

[Wendyf]

Nope, nothing more unpleasant than weaning from their mum's!

[Stanley]

Ahh! I haven't come across that name for it, I have heard one but I can't bring it to mind.
Actually, come to think, it was spaying! Nothing to do with gelding.

[Wendyf]

It seems to be a Scottish term also used in Northern England and no one seems to know how to spell it.

[Stanley]

Another archaic term from Dorothy Hartley showing a late 15th century place setting and the 'Nef' which was your personal cutlery that you took to the meal. This was before the advent of the two pronged fork. Notice one platter for two persons, in those days you and your dinner partner sat together and ate from the same dish. The 'saucer' was just as the name suggests, it was for your helping of whatever the sauce was with a particular dish.
I love these drawings....

[Stanley]

Dorothy Harley has chucked another one at me. I think we've all heard the phrase "This is a fine/pretty kettle of fish" referring to an untoward or worrying event. She says it derives from 'kiddle of fish'. A 'kiddle' was a fish trap set in a stream to catch fish and if the local Lord claimed the fishing rights it was illegal. Therefore the discovery of one of these illegal traps by the Lord's bailiffs it meant a collective fine for the villagers, in other words 'A fine kettle (kiddle) of fish.
I've had a look on tinternetwebthingy and can only find vague theories, one 'authority' says it dates from 1920. I think I'll go with Dorothy on this one!

[Stanley]

I used the word stail this morning in connection with brushes and looked it up... For some reason that escapes me the general opinion is that it derives from stallion!

[Cathy]

Ever used the expression 'Put a sock in it' - probably with an !
It comes from using the gramophone. They (some) only had one level of volume and to muffle it people would put a sock in the horn.

[Tripps]

The number of colloquial expressions that we use all the time is enormous. I speak regularly with people from a variety of backgrounds whose first language isn't English. They have varying degrees of skill in the language. I try to avoid such expressions and keep words as simple as possible to keep things easier for them, and avoid misunderstandings.

I find myself constantly thinking about such expressions as I use them, and often wonder how it would sound to one of that group. It's an interesting exercise.

[Stanley]

Cathy, I think I knew that but it had escaped me. Thanks for reminding me. Essential knowledge!
I think you're right David. Hals und Beinbruch puzzled me when I first heard it. (LINK)