Yorkshire Words of the Week

From: Mr C Gudgeon, Hundayfield Cottages, Marton-cum-Grafton, York.

I AGREE with Mrs D Gawthorpe of Selby that a rotten potato found in the ‘pie’ is called a demick.

A sippet, which had a bar across the front, was the tool used to put the potatoes in the middle. I have never heard of a wooden shovel used for grain called a sippet.

From: Mrs JD Botham, Mill Lane Farm, Newport, Brough

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I am in my late fifties and still use many of these words. Yes, we used to find ‘demicks’ in the potato crop in a wet time, some varieties were more susceptible than others. Also, if the potato pie (pie not clamp) had been broken into over the winter. The potato fork was called a sippit. I used one for 20 years when we were riddling (hand turning).

Another word is ‘bing’ to describe a large wooden chest used to store animal feed outdoors, or indoors (mine is still used) for bed linen and spare harness.

Cattle were ‘bea-ast,’ both singular and plural. They ate hay out of a ‘heck’ and feed was carried to them in a ‘scuttle.’ When turned out, they were ‘as fit as lops’ and ‘touped’ about. Old Norse I believe.

Keep up the good work. Our language must not die out.

By the way, I agree with Sarah Todd about programmes such as A Farmer’s Life For Me.

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I can assure John Richardson that in order to make a living from 25 acres today you would have to be intensive, pigs or chickens maybe. You cannot make a proper living from that acreage nowadays.

Small farms have always been very hard work for little return. There are too many of these programmes which are really only a vehicle for the presenter.

Get a real farmer.

From: Mrs J Gill and Miss E M Gill, Glebe Road, Sheffield.

I WONDER if any of your readers recognise this dialect word collyfoible?

In our family (we are from Sheffield and Rotherham) it is used to describe making something out of nothing.

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For example, a meal that is meal out of unpromising ingredients or a fancy dress outfit of odds and ends.

From: Geoff Atkinson, Whitby

We’ve had several letters giving variations on the use of “oyle” (coal, ear, pig, chip etc).

Here’s a new one on me. I was watching an England football game on the telly with my mother.

Things were not going well when she piped up with “wots ee laikin at. gerrit int goil oyle”.

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