Yorkshire Words Of The Week

HAVING very much enjoyed your As I Was Saying feature, I would like to add a few East Riding dialect words in common use by my father and uncles during the 1950s and 1960s.

The word “stoddy” was often used to describe someone who was vague and not themselves, or to a person who was stubborn and difficult to make sense of.

The word “charver” was often used to describe a miserable, older man. Men were sometimes referred to as “gadgies” – usually in a non-complimentary way. Another word often used to describe someone who was ill-mannered, upfront and arrogant was “juntous”.

From: Mrs. Nancy Pullan, Burythorpe, Malton.

I have enjoyed the letters about “Goodies” told in Yorkshire dialect. When I was a child a local man used to entertain at social events in the area, speaking in Yorkshire dialect, and one of his favourite pieces was “Goodies”. It was hilarious!

I live near Malton, in what was the old East Riding, so the dialect in “Goodies” is very local – and just how my parents used to speak. Dad used to call hedgehogs “pricky backed ochins” (not prickly). Also, with reference to “band” dad always called the rough baler twine “Massey Arris band”, and any other string would be called band. He had some lovely old words in his vocabulary – “thrang” for busy, “pewling” for light snow, “cord” for cold, “mowdy” for mole. I love reading As I Was Saying – keep up the good work.

From: Brian Waddington, Terry Avenue, York.

WITH reference to the correspondence regarding the book Goodies, although I do not have an original, I did purchase from the Yorkshire Dialect Society some 20 years ago their slim volume Selected Tales from Walter Turner’s Goodies published in 1990.

East Riding is rather different from my West Riding dialect, but there’s an excellent glossary and the tales are all humorous. Maybe the society can advise readers whether copies of the book are still available, or if a reprint is planned?

From: C R Atkinson, Far Banks, Honley, Holmfirth.

I wonder if any of your readers had come across the word “yarin” as a description of a spider? It comes from the Upper Holme Valley and was used in the following context.

A family of many children was at the diner table waiting for father to carve a chicken. Each child was saying: “Father, can I have a leg?” To which father replied: “Nay, do you think I’m carving a yarin?” Perhaps it should be “yarrin”.