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The Lancashire Dialect
There are those who regard dialect as simply
'bad pronunciation', the language of uneducated country yokels or of
people who couldn't speak 'properly'. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Dialects have often, regrettably, been associated with people
who were illiterate - the assumption was that if you could read and
write then you could use standard English 'properly'. Yet, dialects
still show the richness and variety of English regional history. They
identify the user as belonging to the place and as part of the culture.
You have to be born in a region to have its dialect.
Even so, mass media (newspapers, radio, film and then television) have
tended to narrow the range and produce a more standardised 'flatness'
to the language, or to promote an Americanised form. Certainly, improved
education and general literacy has tended to detract from oral traditions.
This may explain why Lancashire produced a good number of dialect poets
and writers in the 19th century - men like William
Harrison Ainsworth, Samuel Bamford,
Samuel Laycock and Ben
Brierley all wrote in the Lancashire dialect at about the same time
that books and news periodicals were being mass produced.
Lancashire is very rich in dialects. There are
many variations of it - areas of Cumbria and the Lake
District still use a dialect that is audibly 'Lancashire'. Manchester
may now no longer be in the county of Lancashire, but its dialects are,
to the rest of the world at least, plainly 'Lancashire'. Bolton,
Oldham and Wigan
have decidely individual and unique versions of Lancashire dialects.
Old performers like George
Formby spoke a distinct Wigan dialect and Gracie
Fields was plainly from Rochdale
by her speech - yet they are all variations on the same dialect.
Dialects conventially seem to take three forms:
- Regional Pronunciation
They may take the form of a local or regional pronunciation variation
of a proper existing word;
- Newly Invented Words
They may be a completely new, original and localised word or phrase
invented in or used within the region;
- New Usage of Existing Words
An existing standard or proper word may be used in a different or
alternative way or with a different meaning to that generally accepted
in standard 'Queen's English'.
Bearing in mind these definitions, what follows
is a sample of dialect words and phrases that may be found throughout
the county, despite the gradual decline in their usage. There are, of
course, far too many to include here, so these are merely a small sample.
We are indebted to Dr Alan Crosby's book
"The Lancashire Dictionary" (ISBN 1 85825 122 2) for many
of the following extracts:
- ah'm afeart =
I'm afraid.
- bally ann =
a meal put together from whatever was available, as in "It's
a bally ann meal today".
- b'art or beawt
= without. The former is also in common usage in Yorkshire, as in
the song " Ilkley Moor b'art 'at".
- bellin' =
to cry out or make a great deal of noise (presumably a contracted
form of 'bellyaching').
- bidding =
an invitation to a funeral.
- blather, blether or blether-yed
= someone with nothing between the ears. A head full of air. Hence,
to blether meant to say a great deal about nothing.
- bobber and
bobbing
= a man who woke up workers before clocks were common possessions;
a so-called 'knocker up'; sometimes the man who also woke up those
who fell asleep during church sermons. Bobbers often carried long
poles, with which to tap roundly on bedroom windows or lightly on
the head of a sleeper in chapel.
- boggart =
a ghost or spirit (as in Boggart Hole Clough in Manchester)
- broo , brow
or brew
= a slight hill, bank or slope.
- brew = also
can mean a cup of tea as in "...dust want brew?" (Do you
want a cup of tea?).
- champion =
grand, excellent, first class, superlative.
- chitty = young
girl or lass.
- chunner =
to mutter.
- claggy = sticky
as in dough that is too wet. Sultry or humid weather can also be described
as claggy.
- clough = steep
sided valley or tributary to another valley.
- cow slavver
= cow dung. "Slavver" also means to slobber or dribble.
- cratchy =
irritable, bad tempered.
- delph = quarry
or excavation.(As in the district of Delph in Oldham).
- dip = sauce
or syrup - sometimes fat from the frying pan after cooking.
- eawl-leet
= twilight or dusk (from 'owl light').
- faggot = derogatory
term for a woman, as in "th'owd faggot" (the old woman).
- fair = entirely
or completely, as in "Ah'm fair worn out".
- fettle = to
repair or mend. Sometimes used to indicate a good state of repair
or excellent condition as in "It were in fine fettle".
- fleck and
flecky
= a flea, flea-bitten.
- gill = a specific
old Imperial unit of liquid measure, but locally it could mean any
small measure of drink, as in "Wil't 'ave a gill wi' me?"
(Will you have a drink with me?).
- hippins = baby's
nappies or diapers.
- jessy = a cissy,
or a mollycoddle, hence "Yer big jessy!"
- keck-handed
or cack-handed
= left-handed or sometimes ham-fisted.
- keks = trousers.
- likely = handsome
or comely, as in "a likely lad".
- lurry = lorry
or waggon, often written as well as spoken.
- mash = weaving
term for bad work or a messy job.
- mawkin = dirty,
slovenly or shabby.
- motty = a
small sum of money.
- mun = must
do, as in 'Yer mun do it" (You must do it). The negative form
is munna , as in "Yer munna do it" (You mustn't do it).
- nesh = feeble,
weak or soft as in "Eeh lass, th'art nesh", surviving from
a commonly used Old English word.
- nobbut = no
more than, nothing but, as in "Th'art nobbut a slip of a lass"
(You are no more than a little girl).
- nowt = nought
or nothing.
- nowty = naughty,
bad-tempered, irritable.
- owt = aught
or anything.
- perish = freeze.
- petty = outdoor
toilet.
- piss-a-bed
= dandelion, supposedly caused children to wet the bed, sometimes
expressed more genteely as pee-a-bed .
- pop his clogs
= to die.
- pop shop =
pawnbroker, as in the folk song "Pop goes the Weazel"
- put wood i' th' oil
= close the door (literally "put the wood in the hole").
- reasty or resty
= rancid, rotten, putrid - usually of food.
- seg = a callous
or a corn, usually hard skin on the hand.
- sen = self,
as in "tha-sen" (thyself or yourself) and "mi-sen"
(myself).
- sennit = a
week (seven nights), also "fortnit" for a fortnight (two
weeks).
- sithee = see
you, or, I'll be seeing you.
- skrike = to
cry out, to weep or shriek.
- starved =
frozen with cold.
- strap = credit,
hence "on the strap" (bought on credit).
- tater 'ash
= potato hash, a local dish of corned beef and mashed potato - still
a local delicacy.
- tosspot =
drunk or rowdy - a word now used commonly throughout England though
originating in Lancashire.
- wark = ache,
as in "belly-wark" (stomache ache), also as in "tooth-wark"
(toothache).
- welly = well
nigh, almost, nearly.
- woven mi' piece
= reached the end, come to the end of life (I am ready to die).
- yammer = to
yearn, lament or long for.
Books on Bolton
Dialects
- "A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton
Area. Part I".
By Graham Shorrocks
Introduction, Phonology. Bamberger Beiträge zur Englischen Sprachwissenschaft
(University of Bamberg Studies in English Linguistics) 41. Frankfurt
am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Vienna: Peter Lang, Europäischer
Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1998. ISSN 0721–281X; ISBN 3–631–33066–9;
US-ISBN 0–8204–3565–1.
- "A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton
Area. Part II".
Graham Shorrocks.
Morphology and Syntax. Bamberger Beiträge zur Englischen Sprachwissenschaft
(University of Bamberg Studies in English Linguistics) 42. Frankfurt
am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Vienna: Peter Lang, Europäischer
Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1999. ISSN 0721–281X; ISBN 3–631–34661–1;
US-ISBN 0–8204–4323–9
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