DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[PanBiker]

Is it linked to or a variant of sweating?

[Stanley]

I've had a dig Ian and it seems you may be right. Webster and the OED agree with you..... 19th century origin.

[Stanley]

I talk to myself a lot..... This morning I felt something moving on my forehead and it was a tiny beetle that must have landed on me this morning while I was out. I didn't kill it but moved it elsewhere and at the same time said out loud, "Hello! I've got a lodger!" This was a common expression when I was a lad and usually referred to fleas. How long is it since you heard it?

[plaques]

Must be losing your marbles!

[Stanley]

No P! I found another later, I must have walked through a pack of small flying beetles. Usually it's money spiders, I seem to have a lot around the mint in the front garden.

[Stanley]

When I was with the 22nd of Foot, The Cheshire Regiment, a lot of my mates were from Neston and Birkenhead. If they approved of something they described it as 'bramah'. I often wondered where this came from and I have a theory it might go back to Joseph Bramah, a famous 19th century engineer (LINK) who, amongst many other excellent inventions made the first successful seal for the pistons of Hydraulic cylinders, they are still used today, all seals are on the Bramah principle. I'd like to think this is indeed the root.

[Bodger]

The sane expression was used in Hyde Cheshire, if something was good it was a "bramah" i agree that it comes from the source you mention, he was also a fine locksmith

[Stanley]

[Bodger]

Not heard much these days, "Gormless " /

[chinatyke]

You'd hear it a lot if you lived around me! It perfectly describes the Chinese. They do gormless things like try to get into full lifts before people get out, stand still when they leave escalators, park across the pavements and many other daft things.

Can you be gorm?

[plaques]

Burnley had a lamp post that sat in the middle of the junction of Manchester Rd and St James St. affectionately called 'Owd Gawmless'. A replica has now been erected but this time in the pedestrian area.
.

[Stanley]

China, one of my favourite questions. If you can be gormless you must be able to have 'gorm'!
P. Gargrave had a Gormless next to the bus stop on the town end of the river bridge leading to Marton Road.... Here it is in 1955 as I knew it.

[Wendyf]

One in Earby too...

[PanBiker]

Queen Victoria's Jubilee fountain, now in the town square also had the accolade when originally sited at the top of Butts.

[Stanley]

I used the word 'skive' this morning in the sense of avoiding work but many years ago I re-covered an old desk with a tooled leather square and found that the technical name for it is a Skive and the act of cutting the thin slice from tanned leather is called 'skiving'.

[Stanley]

Which reminds me. Have you ever heard of a 'slink' calf? It was a stillborn calf and the skins were prized as they are very soft. The best Astrakhan hats were made from the skins of unborn animals as well. Isn't it funny what you pick up as you pass through life.

[plaques]

Slightly off-piste, the 'Iron Curtain' often attributed to Churchill in his 1945 speech was actually said by Ethel Snowden. Link. after her visit to Russia. Married to the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden. She was very active in women's suffrage and human rights.
Ref...
The first English-language use of the term iron curtain applied to the border of communist Russia in the sense of "an impenetrable barrier" was used in 1920 by Ethel Snowden, in her book Through Bolshevik Russia...

[Stanley]

The 'Iron Chancellor' born at Cowling..... I once delivered cattle to his son's farm near Exeter.....

[Stanley]

Where did the word 'Spiv' (a shady post war trader) come from?

[Tripps]

I've known one or two - but not sure where the word comes from. Brings Arthur English, George Cole - as Flash Harry at St Trinians, and of course Private Walker from Dad's Army.
Sounds Romany to me, but I can't find my Romany dictionary. It's said to be related to spif. That recalls spiffing which reminds me of Joyce Grenfell - quite the opposite to a spiv.

Good to consider occasionally the origin of words and phrases - amazing what shades of meaning can be conveyed by a few mouth lips and tongue contortions.

[Stanley]

And the thing that fascinates me David is that we assume that the person we are speaking to assigns the same meaning to the words as us and that isn't always the case.
'Spiv'. Cassell dict of slang says Possibly from Romany, spiv = sparrow, derogatory term. Alternative is reverse of VIPS or police acronym 'Suspected Persons or Itinerant Vagrants'.

[Tizer]

Reading an official notice that was published in this town in the early 1800s I see that it used the word `labor', not labour'. This is something that Oliver Kamm often points out - what we decry as American spelling is often the same as was used here in Britain before the Victorian`experts' started persuading us that we had to use their spellings.

[Stanley]

American 'English' is basically the 17th century language they took out with them when they migrated. Usage is also archaic to our ears as well as spelling. Haven't you ever been intrigued by the way they sometimes set a sentence up and to our ears it sounds old-fashioned. I always pay attention when they use the term 'gubernatorial', that's a good example. Some usages seem coy to our ears, they don't refer to grease 'nipples', but call them zerks. You'll never hear of 'breast meat' on a bird, they refer to 'dark' or 'white' meat. I suspect all these have roots in 17th century spoken English.

What struck me yesterday was why do we call a slice of bacon a 'Rasher'.

[Tizer]

Another coy American usage is ass instead of arse.
I suppose `person of colour' originated there too, although I bet a large part of the white population don't use that phrase!

[Stanley]

Perhaps something to do with the fact that there is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.