East Midlands English - Dialect Words

Dialect Words

In recent years, humorous texts such as Nottingham, As it is Spoke have combined phonetically spelt standard English words together in order to deliberately confuse non-natives to the region. For example:

Aya gorra weeya?

is the wife with you? (lit. "Have you got her with you?)

It's black uvver ahh Bill's mother's

it looks like rain. (lit. "It's black over Bill's Mother's." q.v.) -- a common, if somewhat old fashioned, Midlands expression implying impending bad weather.)

Thiz summat up wee im

I think he may be ill. (lit. "There's something up with him.")

Yo norrayin no tuffees!

You aren't having any tuffees (sweets)!

However, there are many words in use in the traditional East Midlands Dialect which do not appear in standard English. The short list below is by no means exhaustive. More comprehensive glossaries exist within texts such as Ey Up Mi Duck by Richard Scollins and John Titford.

badly

hungover/ill

belt-job

defunct coal-mining definition for an "easy" job such as sleeping whilst watching a conveyor belt

blubber

to cry/weep uncontrollably (i.e. "Stop your blubbing.")

bonny

In many dialects, this has the sense of ‘looking well’ often referring to a healthy plumpness. In Leicester and Nottingham, a transferred sense of overweight is derived from this sense.

(There is a yet older sense now only commonly used in Scots, Northern & some Midland dialects meaning 'beautiful' generally rather than of individuals having a pleasing embonpoint specifically.)

chuck

throw (Chuck us 'ball, (South-East Derbyshire)).

The word has the Standard English literal sense of to gently toss a light object and the Standard English extended sense of to easily or contemptuously throw a heavy object. The OED does not record a distinct regional use but does say that workmen use in their trades to mean throw generally.

clouts

trousers (usually pronounced claarts)

croaker

doctor

croggie

an (illegal) crossbar ride, "two-up" on the crossbar of a man's bicycle

cob

a bread roll (bap),(as verb:) to throw

duck's necks

bottle of lemonade

fast

stuck, caught (oh's gorrer finger fast)

island

Roundabout

jitty/jetty

alleyway

larup/larop

to cover with (usually a thick substance)

mardy

grumpy, sulky (i.e. "She's a mardy one!")

mash

to make a pot of tea (i.e. "I'll go mash the tea.")

nesh

a weak person, or one who feels the cold

oakie

ice cream (common in Leicestershire) see Hokey cokey

paste

to beat, often used interchangeably with larrup

piddle

falling liquid as rain or urine (i.e. "It's piddling down with rain" or "A dog's just piddled on the wall")

The OED records this as a Standard English colloquialism rather than a regionalism.

piggle

to pick at a scab, spot or a skin irritation (i.e. "Stop piggling that scab!")

puddled/puddle-drunk

intoxicated

puther

to pour out uncontrollably usually of smoke, steam or dust

pot

a plaster cast

rammel

rubbish/waste

scraight/scraitin'

to cry/crying

skank

Mean or unfair

snap

lunch/food,

snidered/snided/snied

covered/infested, (DH Lawrence used the word 'Snied' in a description of an infestation of mice in Sons and Lovers.),

sucker

iced lolly

twitchel

alleyway

tabs

ears

tuffees

sweets, confectionery

wazzerk/wassock

fool (used across the East & West Midlands)

sket

a useless person.

The greeting 'Now Then' (as 'Nah theen') is still in use in Lincolnshire, used where other people might say "Hello".

People from Leicester are known in the popular holiday resort Skegness as "Chisits", due to their pronunciation of "how much is it" when asking the price of goods in shops.

It is also very common to hear people replacing the word "of" with "on". "There were two on em'" (There were two of them). "Get hold on em'" (Get hold of them).