DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[chinatyke]

I agree with whining child. I took the meaning to be Ma'd as in mothered, or over indulged by mother. Or possibly marred meaning a spoiled child.

[Tripps]

Another good word - Never really needed any thought in my past though - just a common everyday sort of a word. Never thought of it as meaning in a bad mood though, rather meant soft, or unable to put up with discomfort / pain. Something like "nesh" really, though that would apply to weather or cold etc, rather than a cut knee.
When I say "soft" of course I don't mean in the Liverpool sense, meaning stupid.
I love the derivations from Ma'd or Marred . Of course by Sod's Law, my Cassell's Slang Dictionary has gone walkabout at the moment.
Is it in Websters? They're complicated, words aren't they?

[Stanley]

Mard was common usage in Stockport when I was a lad. Can't say I've heard it in Barlick but I'm sure it's used.
Not in Webster. Collins just gives meaning of spoiled.

[rossylass]

Addictive this website!

I haven't looked all through this section so the fat may already have been chewed about this...."It's fair fleeing (?)", meaning it's raining. Anyone come across it?

I was told that my great granny had a saying that I've never heard anywhere else..."Tha's like Dick's hat band - tha goes round & round & dusna leave enough stuff to tie'th' bow wi"", meaning someone who tells a tale & never gets to the point.

What about dialect words for packed lunch? Baggin' in Cheshire, snap in Nottinghamshire & your piece in the north east.

[Stanley]

Dickie had a meadow as well.... Bait for lunch in Barlick and never come across 'fleeing' for heavy rain.
I came across the fact that 'slunken' vellum was used for the most important books in medieval times and it reminded me of a word I haven't seen for years. 'Slink' which meant stillborn. The skin from a 'slink calf' was the softest. The usual source was an unborn animal in the mother if she was slaughtered. The best Astrakhan fur comes from unborn lambs.

[Cathy]

A slink calf - today we call it 'kid' leather.

[rossylass]

Years ago I read "The Classic Slum". It was an account of life in Salford , where the author, Robert Robinson, had been brought up in the 1920's. I remember being horrified to learn that there were slink butchers and that people ate this aborted meat.

[Tripps]

Oh well done Rossy - we are big fans of the "The Classic Slum" on here. You've passed the site initiation test!
Actually the author is Robert Roberts . You must have a great memory to remember such a detail. Here's an extract - from p. 115

As in everything else, 'meat' shops had their rating. They ranged from high class 'purveyor of home- killed beef to the 'slink' butcher who sold meat of the lowest quality, including 'slink' - the flesh of prematurely born calves - and 'braxy' the flesh of sheep that had died of disease or accident. Not for him sirloin and legs of lamb at 1s 6d a pound: his was the place for breast of mutton at a penny, sheeps' heads for threepence and lumps of frozen beef for a few coppers.

The reference to frozen beef puzzled me for a while, when he had been writing about the lack of refrigeration, but I found that -

Not until the days of mass unemployment between the wars did the working class as a whole accept chilled meats. Before 1914 no respectable artisan's wife would have been seen in a shop which dealt exclusively in imported 'frozen' beef and mutton.

I vaguely remember a chain of butchers in Manchester, called " Argenta " which sold only imported beef from Argentina.

Great book - ask Stanley - he''ll tell you. There's an autobiographical sequel too, called "A Ragged Schooling"

(PS I see that both books are on www.abebooks.co.uk for a very reasonable $1 or 63pence, plus £1.88 postage. )

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK for the Vesty family who ran Dewhurst's butchers, commonly known as the 'Argentine' because that's where their meat originated. Plenty of references in LTP, there was an Argentine shop in Barlick.
Logically, there is no difference between slink meat from unborn animals than eating an egg, an unborn chicken. However slink covered a multitude of sins, casualties were sold as well, the modern equivalent is eating road kill.

[Tripps]

I remembered the name as "Argenta", and as a child, often wondered why they couldn't spell Argentina. I did a google search to resolve the matter and was amazed that one of the results was my post on here only yesterday! Any way - I found this link which I think is pretty good evidence.

[rossylass]

My mother, who was brought up in north east Manchester, told me that she knew a family who were very poor and every week bought a frozen leg of Canterbury lamb, a pound of margarine, a tin of condensed milk and two pounds of sugar, which saw them through until the next shop. She reckoned that the sugar bowl never moved from its place on the table and was surrounded by a wall of the hard, damp stuff. This would probably have been in the early 1920's if not earlier. My grandfather was on the stage & often out of work & my granny, the main breadwinner of the family, was a weaver. My mother said there was always good food on the table & my granny claimed that you " could'na call yourself a housewife 'til you could make a dinner of a dish clout".

[Tizer]

There is something else of interest in Tripps' quote from The Classic Slum: the year 1914 in "Before 1914 no respectable artisan's wife would have been seen in a shop which dealt exclusively in imported 'frozen' beef and mutton." Frozen food is usually said to have been invented by Clarence Birdseye about 1923 although this is usually accompanied by the statement that the Chinese around 3000BC, and the Romans later, used ice cellars to freeze food. I think the confusion is because Birdseye came up with the modern freezing method and people ignore the fact that ships were sailing across the world in the 1800s carrying frozen food, frozen in cold regions or in winter.

[Stanley]

Ocean transport of meat was more 'chilled' than frozen. See this LINK for early refrigeration of ships. By 1880 meat transport was common.

[Stanley]

Thanks to Hilary Mantel for reminding me that 'hocus pocus' is a corruption of 'Hoc est corpus', the point of transubstantiation in the Mass when the bread become the body of Christ. Used by the nonconformists to ridicule what they saw as the use of magic in worship.

[Bruff]

Thinking about where we might take mother for lunch tomorrow, I was checking out the the Bull at Broughton. During January, they have an offer on of a 'Rag' and a glass of wine for a tenner. Now this Rag is a new one on me, but their's is beef and onions wrapped in suet pastry and itself then wrapped in 'rags' and cooked. The rags were the cloths from the mills and so on.

As I say, never heard of this, and has anyone had a Rag Pie or Pudding?

Richard Broughton

[Cathy]

Twice in the last 24hours i've heard the saying 'taking the mickey'. Does anyone know where that one comes from?

[rossylass]

Oh Bruff....I had a rag pudding at the Three Fishes and you're in for a treat! I had always simply called them suet puddings, but my friend who hails from County Durham, calls them rag puddings. Her mother used to make them out of leeks from the allotment.

Enjoy.

[Stanley]

'Taking the Mickey'. I've always associated it with pulling someone's leg, particularly if they are ignorant about something. I was told it was because 'Mickey' is associated with the Irish and the itinerant workers who came over here were innocent of the ways of England and were often lampooned (unfairly of course!) for being thick.

[chinatyke]

'......and were often lampooned (unfairly of course!) for being thick.

There was a reason the Irish were uneducated and labelled thick Micks, and the English were to blame. All history now, but weren't the English rotters in those days?

[Stanley]

If you search the site for the rare texts by Reach you'll find that he had nothing good to say about the Irish.

[Bodger]

Why did my mother refer to the Sunday roast as a "joint"

[elise]

"..Taking the Mickey'." Is derived from the rhyming slang Micky Bliss - taking the ....

[PanBiker]

Why did my mother refer to the Sunday roast as a "joint"

Would this not be a reference to the cuts such as shoulder or leg? After all the "Sunday roast" is a misnomer in itself as this only really refers to the method of cooking rather than a particular type or cut of meat. "Sunday roast" or any other day of the week for that matter could refer to a nut roast just as well as any variety of meat.

[Stanley]

'Sunday joint'. The easiest way to divide a carcass ios to sever it at the joints and even though part of the large piece, I think the term stuck. Think of 'jointing' a chicken.

[EileenDavid]

Missed two of the topic's taking the micky and a Sunday joint. I used to have to go for the joint from the butchers he told me it was called a joint because of the cut. i.e. beef sirloin, topside, silverside easier to call it a joint. Do you remember them having the pictures up in the butchers showing you the varies joints.

Eileen