Kirkby-In-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire

BBC VOICES RECORDINGS http://sounds.bl.uk

Title:

Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire

Shelfmark:

C1190/26/03

Recording date:

02.02.2005

Speakers: Collishaw, Mark, b. 1972 Crawley, West Sussex; male; fireman (father manager; mother fundraising manager) Duke, Kev, b. 1975 Mexborough, South Yorkshire; male; fireman Johnson, Richard, b. 1967 Mansfield; male; fireman Langton, Ivan, b. 1963 Pinxton, Derbyshire; male; fireman Mason, Danny, b. 1966 Kirkby-in-Ashfield; male; fireman

The interviewees are all ex-servicemen currently working as fire-fighters in Nottinghamshire.

PLEASE NOTE: this recording is still awaiting full linguistic description (i.e. phonological, grammatical and spontaneous lexical items).

A summary of the specific lexis elicited by the interviewer is given below.

ELICITED LEXIS

○ see English Dialect Dictionary (1898-1905) * see Survey of English Dialects Basic Material (1962-1971) ▼see Ey Up Mi Duck! Dialect of Derbyshire and the East Midlands (2000) ∆ see New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006) ◊ see Green’s Dictionary of Slang (2010) ♦ see Urban Dictionary (online) ⌂ no previous source (with this sense) identified pleased over t’ moon [ɒvəʔ muːn]; chuffed; happy tired buggered; knackered; shattered; knick knacked♦; chin-strapped∆, chinned♦ (learnt in Army); “as tired as ten …”⌂ (e.g. “I’m as tired as ten WEMs” used in Navy as WEMs1 perceived to be lazy)

1 Abbreviation for ‘Weapons Engineering Mechanic’.

http://sounds.bl.uk Page 1 of 3 BBC Voices Recordings unwell don’t feel right; poorly; badly (“badly as a fowl”, “you been badly?” commonly used locally on return to work following illness) hot redders2 (thought to be abbreviation for “red-hot” used of e.g. cup of tea); red-hot; bothered⌂; flustered○; mithered○ (suggested by interviewer as used by grandmother, “stop mithering” also used locally to mean ‘stop moaning’); warm [waːm, wɔːm] cold icers2 (thought to be abbreviation for “ice-cold” learnt in Forces); ice-cold; icy; freezing; bit chilly; brass monkeys (suggested by interviewer, used by grandparents) annoyed threaders∆ (learnt in Forces); peed off; fed up throw lob; cob; sling; chuck; toss (not used locally, “toss it here, mate” used in south) play truant cap it▼ (“let’s cap it this afto”); play truant, hookey (used in south); capping off▼(suggested by interviewer); wagging it (used in Yorkshire) sleep kip; fast-on▼ (suggested by interviewer, heard used); zonked; buggered; dead to t’ world, out on it, sound off (of being in deep sleep); hard on○ (suggested by interviewer, heard used) play a game laking (“are you laking togger?”3 used by father from Barnsley to mean ‘are you playing football?’); playing (“are you playing relievo4/ticky5/peggy6?”) hit hard whack (“whack it”, “gie○ it a good whack”); gie○ it some welly∆ (suggested by interviewer, “welly it” used); thump; belt; crack clothes kit (“get your kit off”∆); clothes; clobber (suggested by interviewer) trousers trolleys∆ (“get your trolleys off”); pants (“who wears t’ pants in your house?”7, used of ‘underpants’ in Yorkshire); chinos; jeans child’s shoe trainers; pumps; plims⌂; plimmies∆ mother me mam; mam; mum; mother gmother momma⌂ [mɒmɑː]; grandma; gran; nana [nanɑː]; nanan♦ (used by own children of/to maternal grandmother from Doncaster to distinguish from paternal “gran”) m partner “first name” (i.e. by name, used by own partner); him indoors, sweetheart (suggested by interviewer, not common locally); babes (suggested by interviewer, used by friend from Sussex) friend surry○ (form of address used locally in past); youth▼ (“where did you end up last night, youth?” common local form of address); love (common form of address in Yorkshire); duck▼ (“come here, duck”, “cheers, duck” extremely common local form of address); marrow (suggested by interviewer, heard used in Cumbria); mucker, oppo∆ (learnt in Forces); buddy; mate gfather grandad; dada♦ (suggested by interviewer, not known locally) forgot name thingy; whatsit; mate (“see you, mate” to person); thingymajig♦, thingymabob♦, thingummy; oojah-ma-flip∆ (of object) kit of tools tool-kit; tool-box

2 OED (online edition) records ‘<-ers>’ as productive suffix used to form adjectives or familiar/humorous nicknames. 3 Collins English Dictionary (online edition at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/) includes ‘togger’ in this sense. 4 Iona & Peter Opie’s Children’s Games in Street and Playground (1969, pp. 172-174) includes several regional variants of this game, including ‘relievo’. 5 Iona & Peter Opie’s Children’s Games in Street and Playground (1969, pp. 64-68) includes several regional variants of this game, including ‘ticky’. 6 Iona & Peter Opie’s Children’s Games with Things (1997, pp. 316-321) includes several regional variants of this game, including ‘peggy’. 7 OED (online edition) records ‘wear the trousers’ in sense of ‘dominant member of household’.

http://sounds.bl.uk Page 2 of 3 BBC Voices Recordings trendy bling, chav (modern, not used); spiv (used by father); wally; trendy guy; Kevs◊, Barry∆ (suggested by interviewer); Kevs◊ and Traceys◊, boy racer (heard used of “Essex boys”) f partner missus; our lass; other half; better half; “call her by her name” (i.e. by name, of own partner) baby babby○; young’un ∆; little’un∆; baby; bairn (suggested by interviewer, used by relatives in North East) rain heavily slinging; bucketing down; pouring down; pissing it down; pissing down; teeming down; teeming it down; raining cats and dogs toilet bog; lav; lavvy; shitter (“on t’ shitter”); the heads (“I’m just going to the heads” used in Navy); throne (“he’s on t’ throne again” used by father in past); going for a swamp♦/tiddle (used in Navy of ‘going to toilet to urinate’); dump (of ‘going to toilet to defecate’); lavatory (used in past of ‘outside toilet’); toilet (of ‘inside toilet’) walkway gennel, ginnel (of walkway between terraced houses); jitty○ (of walkway behind terraced houses/building) long seat sofa [səʊfə, səʊfi] (“sat on t’ sofa” [səʊfi]); settee run water brook; stream main room front room; lounge; house (“go and fetch it out of t’ house for us” used by wife from Kirkby-in-Ashfield) rain lightly drizzle; drizzling; “it’s a bit damp”; “it’s black over Bill’s mother’s”▼ (expression used locally of imminent rain) rich loaded; rich; well off; stinking rich; silver spoon∆ (i.e. “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” used of inherited wealth); well-to-do left-handed keggy○; keggy-handed*; cack-handed; caggy○ unattractive a minger, a dog (of female); rough (“rough-looking”) lack money skint; brassic (thought to mean “no brass in your pocket”, “Cockney rhyming slang” > brassic lint: skint); broke drunk bladdered∆; bollocksed; minging (“let’s go and get minging” used in Forces); trousered◊; mortal (used in North East); crappers∆ (used in Navy); off your trolley∆ pregnant up t’ duff (not used in presence of pregnant woman); up the spout; a bun; pregnant (used in presence of pregnant woman); babbed⌂ (“I see you’ve babbed your missus again”), pupped, in-foal (“banter” used to male friend with pregnant partner); in the club (suggested by interviewer, old-fashioned) attractive gorgeous; fit; babe; a beaut insane bonkers; crackers; mad (“mad as a balloon8/bike⌂/fish⌂/snake∆”); screw loose; barmy; “you’re from t’ nuthouse”; nutcase; Millbrook (i.e. reference to local mental hospital, “you’ll end up at Millbrook”, “he’s a Millbrook case, he is”) moody mardy; grumpy

8 ‘Duel and Duality’, Blackadder The Third Series 3 Episode 6 features the line: ‘your father was as mad as a balloon but you have the makings of a fine king’ – see Richard Curtis & Ben Elton’s Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty 1485-1917 (1999, p. 340).

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