Ketty, crambazzled and rig-welted: 15 Olde Yorkshire words and what they mean
And that heritage also includes the language itself. Below is a list of 15 old Yorkshire words - the majority taken from Norse - which have fallen out of use.
Wow your friends with this glossary of top-drawer Ye Olde Yorkshire.
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Hide AdBefore you know it, your mates will be rig-welted at your almost nang knowledge of old Norse. That is, until you upskittle them.
1. Rig-welted - description of a sheep which is stranded by being laid on its back. This is from the Nordic, hrygg meaning spine, plus velta. It originates from Norwegian ryggrad (spine, backbone) and velte (overthrow, overturn); as well as Swedish ryggrad (spine); and velta (tumble, fall). The Standard English ridge could be associated with rig.
2. Glocken - to start to thaw; when snow goes away. This derives from the Icelandic, gloggur - which means to make clear/clear away
3. Crambazzled - As Channel 4's Countdown wordsmith Susie Dent tweeted: "Should anyone need it, 'crambazzled' is an old Yorkshire term for looking prematurely aged or rough from drinking/partying/a dissolute life." Nice!
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Hide Ad4. Jannock - fair, right, justice. From the old Norse word, jamn.
5. Ket - No, not the drug/horse tranquiliser ketamine - it's raw meat or flesh, offal, rubbish
6. Ketty - nasty, rancid (again, not drug related!)
7. Mense - decency, neatness, tidiness
8. Mickle - much, greater, large. This is sometimes found in placenames, like Micklegate or Micklethwaite.
9. Nang - troublesome, painful, irritating
10. Skyme - to glance sideways scornfully
11. Skitters - diarrhoea. From the old Norse, 'skita'
12. Storken - to set, to stiffen, to coagulate. Often used in cooking, until it fell out of use.
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Hide Ad13. Thorpe - village or small settlement. Now found only as an element in place names (e.g., Priesthorpe, Knostrop, etc) and as a family surname.
14. Upskittle - to restore to an upright position
15. Wapentake - historic sub-division of a shire county, with a periodic assembly at which freeman could vote by a show of weapons. The wapentakes in the Danelaw equated with the hundreds of the more southerly 'Saxon' counties. In Yorkshire, the wapentakes were sub-divisions of the Ridings and, though the latter were dismantled in 1974, wapentakes survive for some administrative/legal purposes.