DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

'Wake' has a history.... I found this. Old English (recorded only in the past tense wōc ), also partly from the weak verb wacian ‘remain awake, hold a vigil’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch waken and German wachen ; compare with watch..
'Fall' as in fall asleep seems right to me if you think about sleep involving a descent from wakefulness. Opposite of 'rising' as in wakening up. That's the best I can do Cathy.....

[Tizer]

I've recently heard people saying that someone is `a wake person'. Not `awake', but `a wake person'. I don't know what they meant and haven't found an explanation.

[Tripps]

Was it perhaps a 'woke' person ? I've had it on my 'irritating words' list for quite a while .

Woke

[Tizer]

Yes, I've remembered it incorrectly - `woke' is what I was hearing. Thanks for the link, now I know what they're talking about.

[Cathy]

Thanks Stanley, makes sense.
I might even write to a crossword magazine that I always buy, they have a clever team of wordsmiths and welcome any questions. Maybe they can have some fun with my questions. If they answer me, I'll pop it on OG.

[Stanley]

Digging into words is always interesting Cathy. The more opinions we get the better.
More on 'wake and 'woke'. One very common usage in the dialect up here used to be to describe an alert person or animal as 'waken', The vowel being flat (as in flat!). It always smelled of Old Norse to me like so many of our unique dialect words.....

[Tizer]

In Blackburn, the a in waken would sound more like the e in deck.

[Stanley]

Yes Tiz but we all know they are peculiar over there in Lancashire! They use 'who' for 'he' and that has got me into trouble in the past......

[Tripps]

'who' for 'he' and that has got me into trouble in the past......

Now come on - it was only 7 years ago we decided that 'who' or 'hoo' referred only to women -

hoo

[Stanley]

Not the case with the man who had lost his crowbar when we were loading a UDEC bottle washer on my wagon David!

[Tripps]

I keep thinking of "hoo art in heaven" indicating that (in Lancashire at least) God is a woman. That came in the car, whilst listening to Mahalia Jason singing the Lord's prayer.
.
Now I hear Mr Ferrari on LBC use the phrase about someone 'duking it out' today when talking about a difference of opinion. Reminded me of the challenge 'put your dukes up'. Dukes meaning fists. Haven't heard that for a very long time. Connection to the Marqess of Queensberry perhaps?

Another dated word heard recently - 'buck' as in 'don't give me any of your old buck'. Meaning cheek. Not heard for ages, and mentally links to my mother.

[Stanley]

I found this David......
"Dooks, or dukes, the hands, originally modification of the rhyming slang 'Duke of Yorks,' forks = fingers, hands... The word is in very common use among low folk. 'Put up your dooks' is a kind of invitation to fight." Alternatively, it is sometimes suggested that 'dukes' is of Romany origin.
I used the word 'grub' this morning for food. I want and had a furtle.... The slang sense of "food" is first recorded 1659, has been linked with birds eating grubs or with bub (“drink”)."

[Tizer]

Heard a man on the radio saying something was `ten ex'. He was referring to a decrease and meant it was ten times lower (10x).

[plaques]

It will probably become one of the modern Aphorisms like .. Double digit. 'X' point rise, to the nth degree, to the limit and nano scale. All very confusing.

[Stanley]

We have a new word.... 'progressophobia'. See this LINK if you really have to know the origin and meaning.....
Warning, it ain't easy!

[Tripps]

We have a new word.... 'progressophobia

I guess Ned Ludd would have used it if they'd had the internet in the eighteenth century.

[Stanley]

Nice allusion,

[Stanley]

I think I must have misspent my youth. I was reminded this morning of SWALK. If you don't know what it is, it's the 'coded' initials many a love-lorn correspondent printed on the back of the envelope of a letter sent to a loved one.
Unfortunately that triggered off the following, and I apologise before hand.
BURMA..... 'Be upstairs ready my Angel.'
NORWICH..... 'Knickers off ready when I come home'.
Can anyone remember any others?

[Cathy]

HESTIA. The name of a bra company.
Holds every size t*t in Australia.

[Stanley]

Never heard of that one Cathy! I like it.... You and I must be the only ones who remember these things......

[Stanley]

Whitaker threw me a curve ball yesterday. Writing in 1800 he mentioned an obscure law widely used in the manorial courts called the 'byre law'. He doesn't say what it covered but it seems to have been used in cases of minor theft or dishonesty. I have to wonder whether at some point the phrase by-Law was corrupted into 'byre'. By Laws were known from earliest times in many countries and were usually local variants of the law.
However, Whitaker goes further, he says that in Lancashire the men who enforced the 'byre law' were known as Barlow men and being found out in minor dishonesty was known as 'Barlow-taken'. As this is contemporary we have to accept his evidence.
Which made me have a look at the origins of the surname Barlow. No joy there, the most accepted origin is that it is place related to Barlow near Manchester.
On the whole an interesting theory that's worth remembering but personally the place name origin seems most likely to me.

[Stanley]

I was reminded of some medieval language this week.
'Housebote' is the right under Common Law to collect domestic fuel from Common Land.
'Haibote' is the same right but for wood to repair fences and boundaries. 'Hai., Hey, hagh, hague, hege' are all Old English terms for a hedge and they occur frequently in the names of farms.
Interesting that House hasn't changed at all.....

[Tripps]

Interesting that House hasn't changed at all.....

I saw some deeds once that referred throughout to the 'dwelling house or messuage' which it seems includes the land and outbuildings. There is also 'curtilage' which I can't be bothered to look up.

[Stanley]

Curtilage..... Norman French for kitchen garden originally but in the legal sense referring to property it is the bounds of anything that lies round the building and allows it to function. Thinking of it as environs or boundaries works.
I found another obscure one while I was looking into the Dissolution. Some estates were described as 'escheat'. This meant that they had been forfeited to the Crown for some reason and the administrator was the 'escheator' who acted as agent for the crown and administered the property. I had to look that one up!

[Julie in Norfolk]

Mother came up with one that I am familiar with, but had forgotten about. Worret (spelling may vary) fiddling about with some physical thing, worrying it. Not sure if it has been on this forum before, I don't recall it. She was worreting something the other day.