BS: Spake Norn Iron

Subject: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Den
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 11:30 AM

I was listening to the Gerry Anderson show on Radio Ulster and if you haven't tuned into this show its worth a listen. They discuss everything from music to the breading potential of buck goats. Anyway there was a guy on from the Beeb talkin' about a new survey they are currently conducting where you would log in here and list words or coloquialisms that are mostly unique to your part of the Islands. There are quite a few that I have heard and used growing up in Norn Iron that seem to be unique but maybe aren't. It would be nice to know some of the origins, if any. Here are some to get us going.
Glipe    usually used as an insult
Clipe    as in pieces of meat or slices
Gulpin   ignoramous
Quare    Queer but usually used as a positive as in quare craic
Slabber slobber? used as insult
Ganzee   not sure of the spelling but I think it may mean sweater in
         Irish

Red      As in tidy or clean
While on holiday from Uni. I worked on a building site and I remember this guy asking the foreman how he would spell redin'. The foreman said, "what do you mean," and the guy said, "I was fillin' out me time sheet and I speant an hour redin' up so I wanted to know how you spelt it".

There are many many more but I'll throw it open. Bring em on.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Mingulay
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 12:15 PM

So nice to read Norn Iron written in a proper Ulster accent. I think there is a real scarcity of written local dialect on Mudcat. Now weer Oi cum from we got difrent wurds loik, sow sprewce meens fizzy pop an pepps meens sweets, oroite?

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 12:54 PM

We in Scotland historically share lots of dialect words with Norn Iron, like 'press' for cupboard for instance. However I was reading a site the other day where a Scots lady was delighting in the discovery that the Norwegian for a vacuum cleaner is 'stoorsooker' which tranlates directly into Scots dialect.
BTW a 'clipe' or 'clype' when I was a kid was a carrier of tales, i.e. 'a grass'.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Megan L
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:15 PM

aye Giok yer right an if ye wir a richt wee clype ye wir likely tae get a guid skelp roon the lugs. We also use gansey for jumper and wid gie a room a guid raed oot fur the spring.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Den
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:48 PM

How about fernenst as in right against or near to. Giok we would use hotpress as in linen closet or cupboard. Stickin' out, in Belfast would mean great. Yer man or yer woman would be that person. Footherin, puttering around. Fisslin a little like footherin except some times it can lead to carnal relations.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Snuffy
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:49 PM

A gansey is (or was originally) a Guernsey jumper (as opposed to a Jersey jumper or an Arran jumper)

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Den
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:51 PM

That's interesting snuffy. I always thought the word had its origins in Gaelic.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Den
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 02:10 PM

Just a wee nyim (a little piece). Houl yer wheesht (be quiet). This is sometimes used in context like forget about it in New Jersey. I'm foundered (cold). Paghal (silent g, pile of crap).

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 03:54 PM

"A gansey is (or was originally) a Guernsey jumper (as opposed to a Jersey jumper or an Arran jumper)"
Are we talkin' about jumping *over* a guernsey cow, or *on* a guernsey cow?

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 05:04 PM

"Foundered" is not confined to the oul' turf. But I've never heard "starved" used to mean the same thing outside the six counties. I always thought "punctured" for "worn out" was pleasingly evocative. "Dead on" is so useful that I've even heard Londoners adopting it for chrissake.

In Derry - or Stroke City as Gerry Anderson used to call it - I've heard people say "the day has a great/powerful drooth on it" meaning the conditions are ideal for drying clothes on a washing line. I've heard people described as "loopers" which I think is good-naturedly uncomplimentary. And what in England would be an ice-cream cornet is in Belfast a "poke".

A one-time head of the Press Association bureau in Belfast was obliged by his wife to change his surname before she would take it. Thus Bob Pooley became Bob Poole. They went to Canada shortly afterwards and I have sometimes wondered if the change was equally appropriate there, or had perhaps even made things worse?

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:43 PM

When chapman billies leave the street
And drouthy neighbours, neighbours meet

Pokey Hat = Ice cream cornet, and an ice cream between two wafers was called a 'slider'.

I remember sombody saying "Excuse me fur raxin' fernenst ye" as they leaned across in front of me to pick something up.

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:48 PM

"Red" is used in Western Pennsylvania and area in the sense of "clean" or "tidy." One usually "reds up" or "redds up" the house in those parts. You might here someone say, "She was redding up the house all day" or "He got redded up 'cause his folks were coming to visit."

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST,Donal
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:49 PM

"The Hamely Tongue" by James Fenton has 'clipe' (to tell, inform on) from Middle English 'clepe' and Old
English 'cleopian' (to call, to name).

And secondly, 'clipe' a large piece, a large area, (origin obscure).

Burns in "Halloween" uses 'blypes' to describe someone losing large pieces of skin from his knuckles.

Fenton's book is subtitled 'A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in Co. Antrim.'

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:22 PM

My grandmother said "forninst" & "beyant" & she was from Missouri. That's "Mizzoura."

I always thought "redding" was more or less "readying."

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: LadyJean
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:59 AM

Scots chased the French out of Western Pennsylvania, and more than a few of them settled here, along with the Irish, mostly Protestant, but not entirely. (Pittsburgh's first Catholic church was named St. Patrick's. It's still in operation.) So, we say redd up for tidy up, and a neb is an inquisitive person. To be inquisitive is to be nebby. In Scots dialect, I understand, a neb is a nose.
Thorns are called jaggers here. Rubber bands are gum bands. Baby chickens are peeps. Yinz is the plural of you. The clerk at McCrory's told me and my friend Ann, when we bought a very brief red nighty with fringe for a friend who was getting married, "Yinz is really evil."
Low class Pittsburghers are called yinzers.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:01 AM

Thran - he's wild thran. (Very stubborn/moody/bad tempered.)
Brave - It's brave an' cold. (Like quare, meaning great.)
Gutters (the muddy ditch bits by the side of a country road. Makes sense, but veryone else in the world seems to use it to refer to proper drains rather than the mud itself)

My sister used to share a house with fellas who abbreviated the commonplace "dead on" to "D.O." Drove us nuts, but I still find myself using it.

Turnip. (IT'S NOT A F*CKIN SWEDE, ALRIGHT?)

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:15 AM

oh aye, I forgot: "thonder"
It's over thonder (it's over there).

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:22 AM

The muddy gullys at the roadside are known the 'sheugh' pronounced shuch 'ch' is pronounced Scots fashion as in loch. I remember a farmer setting me to 'Redd oot the sheugh ahint the kye, wi a graip, an' hurl it doon tae the midden in a barra'
Clear out the trough behind the cows [in stalls] and push it to the dung heap in a wheelbarrow.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:32 AM

Yup, they're sheughs too where I'm from! Gutters seems to refer to the mud in the sheugh - the clabber, as it were.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 06:12 AM

starved/starving comes from a Dutch/German word (sterben)meaning dying; you can be dying of the cold as well as of hunger.
like foundered (which I myself would use for "tired and worn out" as well as for "lame"), it is a word that retained its older meaning longer in N Ireland than elsewhere. I have read (in a book from the 1970??) that starving also retained its older usuage in the area around Newcastle-on-Tyne. Twenty years ago it was very common for people in Derry to say they were "starving" when cold, but I don't hear this usage much nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: sian, west wales
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 06:39 AM

My Aunt, whose principle language is Welsh, will use 'starved' in English for cold, and she's born & bred NE Wales (Dyffryn Ceiriog).

siân

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Den
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 11:11 AM

Especially in Belfast you will be asked in a restaurant by the server, "are yiz gettin", as in can I help you. My mother used to refer to being starved with the cold. Bap is a bun like a hamburger bun. Mingin' and boggin' are used to describe something that is dirty. Its fascinating to find some of these words cropping in other places.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:02 PM

I forgot to define 'graip' to those who may not know, it is a big fork, nothing like your garden digging fork but bigger and curved with the tines closer together.
BTW when doing that job one morning at about 5:30 a.m. I was kicked by a cow, and it propelled me across the walkway and into the wall on the other side where I did a very good impression of a crumpled heap;~) For a while after that I walked with a pronounced limp; L. I. M. P. pronounced limp.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 06:43 PM

Here, Giok, ("here's me, wha?") - I was shocked to find they don't have long tailed shovels in England. They dig archaeological excavations with *spades*! The fools! No shovels!

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 05:53 AM

All of the above words still in use in the north of Ireland, the Irish News on Saturday has a section which includes a Norn Iron spake, some crackers have been included, I liked , yupyit,   bawled out from the foot of the stairs, c`mon Fibula.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 05:56 AM

Try Campsite at Drumcree for a wheen more.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 08:34 AM

I did hear that the reason they introduced those long handled shovels into Ireland was because they are harder to lean on;~)
My self I'd never seen them before till I went to Portugal.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 08:39 AM

John, know to the labouring fraternity here as Long-Tails.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 09:41 AM

When looking at the Khatt's in hospital thread I noticed they use the word 'pot' for a plaster cast, we always called it a 'stookie' and an injection was a 'jag' I shall be in Norn Iron from 3rd to the 10th of next month taking in the Loughstock extravaganza, which I'm looking forward to. This will give me a chance to study the dialect thirst hand.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 09:46 AM

John, will that thirst hand be including a pint?.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 10:10 AM

More than one, Smithwicks or the black Lunatic Soup, it makes no difference to an old alky like myself.
Slainthe.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 12:47 PM

And I repeat -- yawl tawk reeeeeeely weeeeeeirrrrrd. These machines are great for cultural interchange.   
Giok, have a glass of Smittiks for me.....    Tw

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 01:58 PM

Several Tw darling.
Another thought just occurred as I put a nice leg of lamb into the oven for dinner, we used to buy things at the butchers that don't seem to exist anymore. First off there is the aforementioned leg of lamp which my Mother used to ask for as Jigot of Lamb, a direct translation from the French gigot. Then there was 'raw beef ham which you could have spiced or unspiced, our butcher used to keep a big metal shaker full of his own recipe spices, which he shook over each slice as he cut it. Then there was 'Nine hole beef', now I never did find out what that was, and the sheeps head which the butcher would split with his cleaver, and we would boil it and scoop out the brains and put them in little dishes with some gelatin to make 'brawn' Now you can't even buy tripe or oxtail, because of the awful offal scare after BSE. I still make soup by boiling a piece of flank mutton to which I add potatos and turnip. Then I scoop the meat out, and some of the veg as a meal, and add dried butter beans, peas, and barley to make soup. Ah the old frugal Scots ways, remember the joke about the women who asked the butcher for a sheeps head, and asked him to leave the eyes in so's it would see her through the week.
As them Norn Ironers are also called the Scots Irish in some quarters, I bet they did similar things.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 11:04 AM

Oh, I've seen manys a one leaning on them shovels. Leaning on the shovel like that is known as breast feeding it...

"Yupyit?" is a great one ard macha!

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Herge
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 03:51 PM

Some of the glossary from the site dedicate to Craigyhill in Larne! Click here for more of the same.


Ain - Own e.g., S'my bottle o Buckfastz, get yer ain.
Awayonwi'ye - I doubt the veracity of that statement
Aye - Yes
Beak - Pronounced Bake, meaning of the mouth
Bru - Seldom used by young Craigyhillians and popular with the long-term vocationally challenged as a term to describe the dole.
Boke - Vomit
Cert - Certainty as in horse racing. Normally preceeds a discarded limp docket and a cry of "'kenweehurye" as a cultural cleansing chant.
Claim - Cash windfall which many craigyhillians attempt to attain from the government usually by tripping on loose paving stones. Most craigyhillians usually use the money to 'Get a wee motor on the road'
Diginabake - Punch in the mouth
Duur - Hinged household appliance: E.g. "Open the duur yeweehurye"
Heedzamarley - You're not thinking very logically
Full - Drunk, a favoured weekend pastime of locals. Also enjoyed after a moderate win at the bookies
Gi'as - Give me
Keigh - Pronounced "keek" milder derivative of "shite". "Dinnae gi me any u yir aul Keigh"
Noo - This instant: i.e. "I'm away oot noo"
Oot - Out as in "I'm away oot noo"
Ro-aad - Stip of tarmac used for driving stolen cars on. Bonfire practice area ( Late June / Early July only)
Shaps - Place to purchase groceries. The younger ones use it as an impromtu meeting place to smash bottles, boke on kurbstaines and other displays of local culture.
Shite - Unlikely; not very good. Also "dogshite" a brown malodourous substance which occupies over 70% of "the Big greens" surface area.
Stain Stone,- as in rock or to remain, as in "I'm stain in th'night"
Slabber - Chap not to be believed
Stoat - Also stoater or stoch: really excellent
Tamarra - The day after today. Trendy girls name which many single mothers call their daughter because it 'sounds fancy'.
Thee - Three
Wab - Penis, foolish person, someone with a speech impedement talking about a person named Robert ie. "See my bwuvver Wab, he'll beat youwe shite in"
Weehurye - Woman of dubious reputation. Person gettin one over his mates
Weeker - See stoat
Whine - The very esscence of ones existencial being. "I'll beat your whine in"
Youse Also Youseun's - referring to a group of other people including you.

Numbers
1 Yin
2 tae
3 thee
4 foor
5 Fife
6 Six (or sex if speaker is from southern Craigyhill)
7 'en
8 EEight
9 Nine
10 ten


We won't bother with the larger numbers as it is unlikely that the craigyhillian will have more than 10 poun in his pocket unless you get him between the post office on giro day and Eastwoods bookies..

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Boab
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 01:37 AM

Yon's a big brouch roon the muin the nicht; an' ye ken whit 's said aboot a brouch roon the muin--'a faur brouch's a near stoarm an' a near brouch's a faur stoarm. Thae'll nae be muckle yowes i' the brae-face the morn--the'll a' be cooryin doon i' the biel o' the knowe----

" Whaur dae ye come frae, Pal?"
"Norn iron"
Whaur?"
"Norn iron---Norn Iron---bliddy BELFAWST!"

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST,The donegal gissa
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 11:05 AM

Foundered is the best word ever noone ever gets it though! Im at college in Maynooth and they havent a clue

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 11:20 AM

Is it chilly there??

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Bagpuss
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 12:51 PM

My favourite Geordie word is "canny" which has loads of meaning - eg, nice, kind, friendly (she's a dead canny lass), very or quite( a canny lang way, a canny hike), careful (gan canny) and probably more I can't think of.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 01:16 PM

We hae dumbfoonert, as in dumbfounded.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 04:19 PM

GREAT THREAD!! I love reading through all of these and sounding them out, esp. since some of my ancestors came from Norn Iron. Reminds me of the old "Colloquilisms" thread.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 12:05 PM

here in derbyshire if you're 'nesh' - you're cold, or you're sensitive to the cold.
This side of the Penines though they don't know what it is to be 'clemmed' - Lancashire for hungry.

are those words used in other parts of the country?

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: JohnB
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 11:20 PM

What about "snicket's and ginnel's" ow d'ye get anywere?
What a bunch of Gert Lummerx's, JohnB

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: alison
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 02:35 AM

I'll hit ye a quare dig in the gub!!

No mention of scunnered (or scundered) yet
ie. I was fair scunnered (I was a tadge embarassed)

when I moved up to Castlerock from Belfast I was surprised the first time someone told me their feet were starving!

get out of thon ye dirty wee hallion. (uttered by my mother to us on manys the occastion)

this brings back memories of all those old "John Pepper" books and the Saturday night piece he'd write for the Belfast telegraph.

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 06:59 PM

Was just reading a mystery which takes place in Yorkshire. Old farmer used the word "scratting." I got the meaning by context, but then googled it for more. Found a fun site, Teesspeak in the North East. Lots of new words to learn!

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: GUEST,Hud
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:08 AM

Picking up on a few words above:

Ferninst - Has the usage in Donegal of 'on account of' as well as 'near to' as in 'He changed his dirty shirt ferninst the neighbours seeing him'

Redd up as in tidy up is, I suspect, from the gaelic 'Reidh'- to ready or tidy.

Gansey is a direct translation from the gaelic word for shirt

My favourite is 'Tworthy' from Ballymena direction - it means '2 or 3'

Subject: RE: BS: Spake Norn Iron
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 11:17 PM

Norwegian - what someone from Belfast orders when he'd like another little glass of gin.

Seamus