DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[chinatyke]

Surely Bar'l'ick is just a correct abbreviation of the full name?

[PanBiker]

Full name is often abbreviated to B'wick, that's OK when written but not really pronounceable. Your contrition above is probably as good an explanation as any China.

[Stanley]

Or even contribution? Sorry Ian.....

[Bruff]

There are some who think Barnoldswick is pronounced 'Barlick'.

Some years ago now, I was on a writing skills course. The tutor (interesting chap - founder of the Plain English Campaign) was chatting away for some reason about places like Slaithwaite and Hawick and Southwark and how they are pronounced differently to how they read. He then chucked in Barnoldswick as being pronounced Barlick.

I corrected him as I have always been of the view Barlick is a convenient abbreviation rather than a pronunciation.

Richard Broughton

[David Whipp]

Thanks everyone.

I emailed the various comments (apart from Richard's) to the person enquiring. Responding with a 'thank you', he said:

I shall pass the comments on to the walking group I go out with. We stopped off at Bancroft Mill whilst getting wet on Tuesday and it all started from there.

[PanBiker]

Or even contribution? Sorry Ian.....

Aye, how did I manage to miss out two complete letters? Mind you, I didn't have my readers on at the time.

[David Whipp]

Not sure you sound contrite enough about this, Ian.

[PanBiker]

Is this better?

[plaques]

To prize open. Quite often I hear it as Sprize open. Is this just bad grammar or a very local variation on prize.

[Stanley]

I've always spelt it 'prise'. Prize is an accepted American spelling. ME has it as prise and assumption is that it stems from the Latin 'prehensa' to grasp or hold.
Richard, that's an interesting observation. Custom and usage doesn't have set rules and there can be varying results. Fanshaw started off as an abbreviation of Featherstonehaugh and became a surname in its own right. Menzies pronounced 'mingies', no abbreviation there. Strathaven always pronounced 'Straven', Milngavie always 'Mulgaie. Funny one is Smellie, always pronounced Smiley and that became a separate surname.

[Tripps]

My favourite posh name is Cholmondley pronounced Chumley. Often used as a nickname for my youngest lad.

[Stanley]

I'd forgotten Cholmondley and I should remember it, I used to deliver cattle there. Do you remember the advertisements for Cockburn's port and the stick Leonard Rossiter got for mispronouncing it? I wonder if Skeggy for Skegness qualifies?
Just used a word and wondered where it came from. Why do we call a small crowbar a 'Tommy bar'.

[Tizer]

Isn't there a place in East Anglia named Happisburgh that's pronounces something like Haze-borough? Very confusing!

[Stanley]

I had occasion yesterday to dip into a reference book I don't consult very often, 'The Chronology of words and phrases' by Linda and Roger Flavell. I came across this. When the Reconstruction government was formed the Ku Klux Klan (derived from the Greek 'kuklos' meaning circle), they intimidate the blacks by mutilation and floggings. The floggings were known as a 'Bull dose' in other words a 'dose fit for a bull'. This became 'bulldoze' and those who did the floggings were bulldozers. This meaning is still current as meaning 'To force by violent means, intimidate or apply pressure'. This came before the last usage which became current in the 1930s when the new caterpillar tracked earth mover that overcame everything in its path was called the 'bulldozer'.

[hartley353]

I'd forgotten Cholmondley and I should remember it, I used to deliver cattle there. Do you remember the advertisements for Cockburn's port and the stick Leonard Rossiter got for mispronouncing it? I wonder if Skeggy for Skegness qualifies?
Just used a word and wondered where it came from. Why do we call a small crowbar a 'Tommy bar'.

The most common explanation for Tommy bar is attributed to the tool used to change fuses on Mills bombs by tommy's. But there is a far older use of the word from when women of the night were called toms, and their customers seeking satisfaction came equipped with a tommy bar.

[Julie in Norfolk]

Isn't there a place in East Anglia named Happisburgh that's pronounces something like Haze-borough? Very confusing!

Not the only place in Norfolk with confusing pronunciation!

Wymondham - windam

Costessey - cossey

Hargham - harfam

Wretham - rettam

Laziness I calls it! Each vowel and consonant is there to be pronounced as far as I am concerned.

[Stanley]

Now look here Mainwaring.....

[Cathy]

Ah... the English language. Silent w's, silent h's, missing middles of words. I imagine that if you travel around England a bit, eventually you will get a look from the locals that says "You're not from around here are you". Oh dear.
Happens in Oz too. Sometimes while listening to journalists/reporters talking about SA places, you immediately know that they haven't actually been there because they haven't pronounced the place's name correctly. It annoys me, but what can you do?

[Julie in Norfolk]

Sorry, yes and of course since the influx of Londoners to Thetford, now pronounced Fetfid.

Oooerrr, my husband is one of those Londoners, although he speaks eshtury.

[Stanley]

I think I know what you mean Jules. I listened to a TV documentary last night with a voice-over by Felicity Kendall and to my ear it was the English language being tortured almost beyond recognition with some words. I love the differentiation and the use of archaic words in dialect. I think the purest use of the language I ever came across was in Inverness.

[Julie in Norfolk]

My poor spouse has had nigh on 40 years of marriage being asked to articulate (speak clearly) and to stop mumbling. I thought I was going deaf at one point, little did I know he was "copping a deaf' un".

[Stanley]

I used to be fascinated by the different dialects and constructions I came across when I was driving my wagon all over the country. I think I got pretty good at identifying most regional dialects. I remember once coming across a lady who kept the bar at the Lancashire College on Southport Road in Chorley. She had a most beautiful way of speaking but it puzzled me because I couldn't identify it so I asked where she came from and told her why. She told me to go way and think about it and ask her later because nobody had ever got it right. A bit later I went back and told her she was a Geordie from the Isle of Arran. She sounded just like Janet the housekeeper in 'Dr Findlay's Case Book' if you can remember her but there was a layer of Geordie over the top. Turned out I was right and she said it was the first time anyone had got it right, she was born on Arran but married a Geordie and lived in Newcastle for years. Probably the most pleasing speaking voice I ever heard and I fell for it completely!

[Stanley]

One of the advantages of reading books by people who have studied Greek and Latin is that you occasionally come across surprising word origins. I'm reading Diarmid MacCulloch's 'A History of Christianity' again and he gives the origin of 'kirk' for church. I had always assumed it was a dialect version of church common in Scotland. I also knew that Kildwick church is often referred to as the 'Lang Kirk of Craven'. According to Diarmid it comes from the Late Greek 'kuriake' meaning property of God. So, once more, the dialect is nearer to the root than the modern version.

[Belle]

I had a similar experience to you Stanley, when speaking to an American woman on the phone, I asked her if she had been born in Ireland because her vowel sounds were Irish, (having done linguistics like me you will know it's the vowel sounds that make an accent), She was taken aback as she had never been to Ireland but her parents were both Irish immigrants to New York.

[Stanley]

I think it's syntax as well Belle. Sentence construction is harder to modify than speech and it often shows. Lots of ethnic towns in the American Mid-West and it showed even though they all had good American accents. I have a friend who is third generation US but the Jutland still pokes through occasionally!
On a different note.... I heard a journalist on the radio explaining that the adjective 'titanic' originated with the loss of the ocean liner. He must never have heard about the Greek Gods who were defeated by the Olympians....