DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

Good one David, yes, I remember 'putting the bubble in'. I don't think I ever heard it used outside the army.

[Stanley]

Looking at the jokes involving dialect on the clean jo0ke topic reminded me of the London based, Lady, BBC producer who edited the film the BBC did on the closure of Bancroft Shed.



After viewing the footage she edited out almost all of Newton's wonderful contribution (Far more important than mine) on the grounds that he was unintelligible! In other words she couldn't understand him so nobody else would. It was attitudes like that at the BBC that meant that Wilfred Pickles was not allowed to stay on as a news reader.
I've just remembered something.



Peter White, the Inspector of Ancient Monuments came up from London to talk to Newton Pickles about taking the waterwheel out of Glasshouses at Pately Bridge. After talking to him and then listening to Newton and me talking he said about one exchange "I take it he was speaking English?" I never forgot that, it betrayed a contempt for anyone who had a dialect, they saw us as 'quaint'.

[plaques]

The whole point of language is to convey information. There is no point in talking if the recipient doesn't understand your accent. One of our extended family from Geordie Land won a scholarship to Cambridge. Nobody could understand him. He was adamant he wasn't going to change but after a quick talking to he saw the light but reverts back when he's back home.

[Tripps]

Heard an interview yesterday from a student at Durham University with a (quite mild) Northumberland accent who was treated abominably by other students on their corridor in halls on account of his accent. That surprised me, because I like the accent, and I thought it was PC for modern young people to be non judgemental.

I think Durham is where people who failed to get into Oxbridge go, as their reserve choice - so maybe a bit of old fashioned snobbery?

[Tizer]

I've read similar stories about Durham University. I suspect it's just a few nasty types that get their actions into the news media and that most of the students there are OK.

[Stanley]

Durham snobbery. That's what comes of having a Prince Bishop for all those years.....



I have a name dropping story about Durham. One evening on 1989 I found myself in the company of Lord Montague who was head of what was then English Heritage at the time. The occasion was a tour of the North of England organised by the Council of Europe and I was there because I knew enough about certain things to be able to answer questions. At one point I found myself being quizzed by him about Queen Street at Burnley which English Heritage was pushing as the last steam driven weaving shed in England. I had to tell the truth when asked about it and so I said I had found another steam driven shed in Rochdale; Baiting's Mill. I saw a look of horror on all the faces of the EH officials in the group when Lord M showed an interest and asked me to send him details and pictures. I did so but of course they sank without trace. I was nabbed by the EH mandarins and told I was very naughty. I said I thought it was always right to tell the truth and that argument didn't go down very well.
Later in the tour I found myself spending two night in a suite in the Old England Hotel at Windermere with a picture window giving a wonderful view up the lake. Money seemed to be no object. I often wonder how much money is spent on those gravy trains, they certainly still exist!

[Whyperion]

couple of links to Baitings Mill in 1999 here https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1170181 (out of use but explains where some items went to and what happened to the site.

Peter White, the Inspector of Ancient Monuments came up from London to talk to Newton Pickles about taking the waterwheel out of Glasshouses at Pately Bridge. After talking to him and then listening to Newton and me talking he said about one exchange "I take it he was speaking English?" I never forgot that, it betrayed a contempt for anyone who had a dialect, they saw us as 'quaint'.

I have seen subtitles on TV for such accents, - Did I hear Newton Pickles on one of the LTP audios or was it just the written transcription to some of the interviews dont completely to phrases used. I have heard my wife's grandfather (from Dewsbury c1890) on tape when 70 years old, and the Yorkshire usage of words run together, or beginnings and endings altered or omitted, plus you have mentioned the odd word that Newton Pickles used for some specific technology or architectural piece. I can follow most of the 'older english' styles, being brought up on Victorian Hymns and the King James's bible helps with obsolete words and usages that I puzzled over but worked out for myself. Do Children still do public speaking at school (I was not very good , but could read well ), try giving them words like Gentle in one context, and Gentile in another to see that many guess the pronounciation and therefore probably have not encountered the word meaning before. Been watching a you tube today where a couple of comments covered the word Grosvenor ( as in the Duke of Westminster). Its pronounced Groveknaw (if you like) not Gross Venner , as some thought. The joys of english vowel shifts.

[Tripps]

I've just heard a head teacher use the phrase 'a degree of optionality' . I think she meant choice.

[Stanley]

Ah, she was letting you know she was educated well David. To paraphrase Alec Guinness as the vicar in Kind Hearts and Coronets... I prefer my language without the concomitant crudities.

[Bodger]

Bogie /Bogey , In the Holmfirth area in my childhood this could be a home made form of transport (steering bolt hole drilled with a red hot poker) or a semi solid mucous found in ones nasal aperture

[Stanley]

We had those examples of bogeys as well Bodge. Indeed, on a steam locomotive it's not even a matter of dialect, 'Bogey' for running truck is a universal term.
Then there is the bogey score on a golf course but I don't know what that means. There's a march called 'Colonel Bogey' as well isn't there.

[Tripps]

Tomorrow is Deepavali - or that's what I always thought it was called. The Chancellor Rishi Sunak has just lit a row of candle lights on the steps of 11 Downing Street - but he calls it Diwali.

Deepavali and Diwali are just similar festival with the same meaning that have differed on how they are spelled which is one of the most apparent of all their differences. Both are “Feast of Lights” but the right word to use is Deepavali by South India which actually comes from the Sanskrit vocabulary meaning a ‘line of lamps’. However, this Sanskrit word have been modified by the North Indian people with the use of the word Diwali from their language. Also, it is an important thing to note that the South Indian colonized countries such as Malaysia and Singapore use Deepavali which is the etymologically correct term.


Nice to be ' etymologically correct'


.

[Stanley]

Don't relax your guard David. Being 'correct' never protected anyone from anything!

[Stanley]

I have a word for you David.
'Bricolage'
According to French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the artist "shapes the beautiful and useful out of the dump heap of human life." Lévi-Strauss compared this artistic process to the work of a handyman who solves technical or mechanical problems with whatever materials are available. He referred to that process of making do as bricolage, a term derived from the French verb bricoler (meaning "to putter about") and related to bricoleur, the French name for a jack-of-all-trades. Bricolage made its way from French to English during the 1960s, and it is now used for everything from the creative uses of leftovers ("culinary bricolage") to the cobbling together of disparate computer parts ("technical bricolage").

[chinatyke]

Bric-a-bac? Bits and pieces - same etymology?

French bric-à-brac

[Stanley]

I'd say so China!

[Tizer]

Here's one for the Tripps list...`mockumentary'. I've just seen it in a news story about a woman who has made spoof videos about women, for example on a girls night out (she was pregnant and therefore the only sober one and she saw everything in a different light) and decided then to make the videos. Apparently they've become very popular.

[Stanley]

I can't remember where but yes, I have come across that one.
Word meanings are suffering badly in radio interviews because under constant pressure from interviewers (Have you noticed how they keep repeating the forename of the interviewee?) anyone who gets on air has to get as many words in as possible in and unbroken stream. Many words are elided (liment = Parliament is a good example) and the object is to get as much in as possible. On a bad line or with an unclear connection this means that what comes across is gobbledegook.

[Tizer]

Some of the problem is due to slight dropping of the connections when interviewing remotely by mobile phone or Zoom. Also when interviewing remotely if they have more than one interviewee they need to keep stating the name to let them know who they are directing the question or comment to.

[Stanley]

The usage I am talking about is with one person, it's to continually nudge them to stop talking when time is running out. If you are on air as an informant the name of the game is to keep talking!

[Tizer]

I notice this morning in The Times it quotes Boris referring to `the prittster' - you can guess who he means!

[Stanley]

And 'forming squares' as well. I wonder which volume of Boys Own he is reading at the moment! He still thinks like a very old fashioned schoolboy.

[Tizer]

Cripes!

[Tripps]

He'll have been reading Churchill again or perhaps Sir Henry Newbolt -

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

They're still fighting (again) in Ethiopia, and the Russians have asked Sudan if they can have a Naval Base on their Red Sea coast. The 'Great Game' continues. Reaches for the Kipling complete works.

[Stanley]

I think we have all recognised where he is getting his ideas from. The Playing Fields of Eton....
Why do we put up with it? What is it with the Brits and their reverence for tradition and the officer class? Are we simply idle?