DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Tizer]

Collins gives `wick' as a dialect version of `quick', as in meaning alive.

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Mum often describes her Jack Russell as " a little Wick 'un " ...meaning quick and lively....

[catgate]

I think you will find the phrase "the quick and the dead" in The Bible (if my memory can go so far back correctly).

[Belle]

I don't think you will Catty, it is from the creed said in CofE churches, and possible their Catholic predecessors, but it is not a biblical quote as far as I can see.

[Tripps]

Wikipedia seems to think it's from the bible, and quotes two sources. - I just thought it was a film.

Noticed the word "sanction" used a lot last night regarding Syria. It then struck me that the word has two meanings - in one sense meaning to approve and allow an action, and in another meaning almost the opposite.

[Belle]

My mistake! I looked it up in an online searchable bible site but wasn't looking at the King James translation..it appears in 2 Timothy 4:1 and 1 Peter 4:5 in the king james.

[Stanley]

When I was a lad and in the church choir I was at two services and Wickliffe Sunday School every Sunday and in both the King James version was used. Makes you realise what an influence it was on the way we use language.

[Bodger]

Not really dialect, but if things were getting tight, ie the match was a draw, " it's muck or nettles na"

[catgate]

Around the old outside privy/earth closet/long drop would grow a healthy bed of nettles.
I think you will find the root to the question hereabouts.
Of course, all old fashioned farm middens, often had their share of nettles.

[Stanley]

Bodge, I'd call it dialect. Either way you were in trouble!

[Stanley]

I see that embedded in a list of words deemed ageist and patronising is 'love'. I have been using love as a term of affection for the ladies in my life for over 70 years and I'm afraid I'm not going to change now. It isn't the words, it's the context they are used in.

[Bodger]

Around my old neck of the woods, West Riding, Sheffield, Huddersfield, love was used when addressing either sex, and had nowt to do with fairies ?

[Bradders Bluesinger]

" Duck " is exactly the same in Derbyshire....

[Tripps]

I think that calling a man 'love' - by another man, is one of the defining differences between Lancashire and Yorkshire speech.

[Stanley]

How about 'dunce's cap'. Now where did that one come from?

[Tripps]

I learnt this at school, and more remarkable still remember it. Named after the 13th Century Scots philosopher Duns Scotus, who was an all round clever clogs in his day. Not sure how he comes to be connected with lack of knowledge, but no doubt google would provide the answer.

[Stanley]

A common saying round here when something like hay-making was being done on a Sunday was 'The better the day, the better the deed'. Anyone else come across this?

[Belle]

That's one I've heard Stanley...in my mind it belongs in the same box as "never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

[Bodger]

some thing nice it's " spiffin"

[Stanley]

I've heard 'spiffing'. More public school than public house I think.

[Tripps]

You have used the word "foreigner" regarding your fire irons meaning an item made at work for private use. (in the meal break of course). No one down here would understand that usage. They would call it a "homer"

[catgate]

You have used the word "foreigner" regarding your fire irons meaning an item made at work for private use. (in the meal break of course). No one down here would understand that usage. They would call it a "homer"

That's what I call poetic justice.

[Stanley]

David, 'foreigner' has always been the description I have known. I think I heard 'homer' in the Midlands around 1970.

[Bradders Bluesinger]

Plenty of "Homers" around Derby....I recall Stainless Steel developing tanks , and Fishing reels of sublime quality......
Nothing to do with Rolls Royce , of course !
Prior to that it was French polished wooden objects that had not come out of British Rail's carriage works , either...
In the day , I'm told there were more French Polishers per-capita , than anyware else .

[catgate]

.
..... there were more French Polishers per-capita , than anyware else .

Have you ever come across a Polish Frencher?