Yorkshire Words Of The Week

In the mid Sixties I had the pleasure at the time of visiting my girlfriend’s grandparents in Leeds – I think they lived in Lower Wortley.

As a lad from Hull, if anything was of rare occurence it was described as “once every Sheffield flood”. My girlfriend’s grandmother described it as “once every Pudsey Bladder works open day”.

I have always wondered if this was a well-used saying? I do sometimes have difficulty in observing what are dialect words, especially when they are used regularly.

The other day I referred to a “coggie boat” with dismay from friends ( it being the small row boat pulled by a yacht or barge).

And also being pushed in a tansad as a youngster (a type of pushchair). Keep the column going.

From: Dorothy Penso, Lastingham Terrace, York

The reference to “buffet” (Judith Hodge, July 23) brought back many memories. We had a pine wood buffet with turned legs which my mother used to sit on beside the fire. Every one I knew had one of these buffets. I had a friend whose family called their buffet a stool which seemed very posh to me. It was many years before I was comfortable calling a buffet a stool. The term “donned” for getting dressed reminded me of people saying a woman was “all dolled up” if she was wearing her best clothes and perhaps a little overdressed. I can just recall that cloth or fabric was sometimes called “stuff”. A hole in a sock was called a “potato”. People who had enough for their needs and a bit to spare were said to be “short of nowt they’d got” or “nicely placed”.

From: John Walshaw, Earlsheaton, Dewsbury.

MY mum, when I was very young, called scissors “sithers” which I was told was from the Huddersfield area.

She also used “staupin” as in walking over a newly ploughed field to grumble at me, as a child, and had my toys scattered over the room carpet when she was wanting to set the table for tea.

“I’m stalled of staupin ovver your things”, she’d say.

From: CR Atkinson, Ray Mount, Far Banks, Honley, Holmfirth

My mother lived in the Upper Holme Valley all her life and used the word “califeudling” to denote a devious, underhand negotiation. “There’s some califeudling going on”.