Daft, fond, cakey or barmy

Dialect is alive and well in England. Among variations on common terms are:

ACTIVE: WICK (North East, north Yorks, south Lancs, mid-Lincs); WACKEN (Greater Manchester); FIDGETY (north-east Lincs, west Midlands, mid-Wales borders, mid-Norfolk; LISH (north Lancs, west Yorks, south Cumbria); ON THE GO (east Yorkshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Notts, Northants, Beds, Herts); BUSY (north-east Essex, south Suffolk; SPRACK (Bristol, north-west Somerset); LSSOM (north Surrey, east Berks, north-east Hants, Wilts, south-west Oxon).

SILLY: DAFT (Cumbria, west Lancs, Greater Manchester, north Yorks, East Riding, Midlands and northern Home Counties, Bristol, Devon, Cornwall); GORMLESS (North-east, Yorks; FOND (Yorks, Durham); CAKEY (Staffs); ADLE-HEADED (Wilts, Gloucs); BARMY, south Greater London, north Kent).

THROW: PELT (south Northumberland, Tyne and Wear); SCOP (west Cumbria); CLOD (south Lancs, north Mersseyside); COB (Lancs-Yorks borders); PELT (Lincs, north Cambridgeshire); YACK (Notts); HULL or COP (north and east Norfolk, east Suffolk); HAIN (north Somerset); HEAVE (West Devon).

WE TWO: THE TWO ON US (north Cumbria, north Northumberland, mid and north-east Yorks, west Lancs); THEE AND ME (parts of west and south Yorks); US TWO (a wedge of Yorks from York north-east to coast, Durham, most of central and eastern England, Devon and north Cornwall); THE TWO OF US (Isle of Man, Greater London, south Essex).

Comprehension Questions

1. Find five words meaning “afraid”. Which one do people use in Cambridge?

2. What did Mrs. Thatcher mean when she said “frit” in referring to the Labour Party?

3. What is “addle-headed”?

4. Which fruit has the same dialect-name in various parts of the country?

5. Do young people still use dialect?

6. What is surprising about the survey?

Find these words in the text and then match them to their meaning:

1) nurtured 2) jibe 3) sliver 4) coined 5) crops up

6) fieldwork 7) tenacious 8) countered 9) eroded

a) insult b) occur c) challenged d) bred ) long, narrow area

f) long-lasting g) worn away h) practical work i) originated

Discussion questions:

1. Do you think it is important that dialects survive?

2. What differences in pronunciation are there between different parts of your own country?

Yack me an oxter toozday The key to life is not who you know but where you are.

Had you yesterday asked people across England to name the day of the week, they’d have given you varying answers. The calendar said it was Tuesday. But while in much of the North and Midlands it was Tyoozday, a band of countries from Sussex to Staffordshire was celebrating Toozday. And Cheshire, according to an Atlas of English Dialects to be published in the autumn/fall/backend of this year by the Oxford University Press, was having a Choozday, as it always tends to do at this time of the week.

Sometimes the countries differ in the way they pronounce a word. Room rhymes with broom across much of the country, but not on the Scottish borders or in much of East Anglia. Across much of the nation, your auntie’s your aantie, but elsewhere she’s your ahntie or antie. On the boundaries of Norfolk and Suffolk there’s an odd little island of ahnties in a sea of surrounding aanties. In other cases, though, one word serves in London and quite another in Leeds or Lowestoft. The assiduous digging (graveing/delving/howking) of Clive Upton and JDA Widdowson reveals that immediately south of the Scottish border your armpit’s an oxter. The permutations of “pant” are enough to leave you/thou/thee feeling quite giddy, dizzy, mazy or swimy. In various parts of the realm to pant is to tift, to thock, to puff, or to puff-and-blow. All this is based on geographical variations. What Upton & Widdowson might well do next is to throw/chuck/fling/yack/hoy/hull/cop/heave/hain/swail/ clod or cob their investigation open to other differences too: the sort of dialect shifts you get, for instance, between a wine bar in Leadenhall Street and a transport caff in Bow. A tough challenge maybe, but we think they are active/energetic/busy/lively/fidgety/spry/sprack enough to carry it off.

Comprehension Questions

1. What are the standard (RP) pronunciations of a) Tuesday; d) aunt?

2. What are the two possible pronunciations of “room” and “broom”?

3. “Thou” and “thee” both mean “you”. Use them to complete these sentences:

1. I’ll never tell … .

2. … art no friend of mine

4. Find four dialect-synonyms of “confused”.

5. What does “Yack me an oxter Toozday” mean? Does it make sense?

6. Are you feeling sprack today?

Discussion questions:

1. How much variation in vocabulary is there?

2. What factors determine whether a dialect survives or not?

3. Are children encouraged or discouraged to speak their local dialect?