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Does anyone here use the word "Serry" to indicate a friend? eg. Ayup Serry, how's it going?" I assume it's a derivative of the French "Cherie".

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Been in Bristol since 75. Burton Joyce from 64.   Weeding in back garden thinking about god knows what when "Y'aright serry?" suddenly popped into my head. Always assumed it was a corruption

My step-dad and his relatives lived in Eastwood and "Serry", "faitin'" and "scraitin'" were everyday words to them. "She said ...", became "Ow sed", and trees were "trays". They had brilliant nick-n

Origin of "Serry" Derived from late Middle Ages "Sirrah" a form of address between men of equal rank. Used a lot in Shakespeare's plays for instance. I often heard "sedge" and "serreh" in the 50s.

A number of my pals during the 60s used it loosely as a greeting. I really have no idea of its origin.

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Thank you Stephen! You have jogged my memory - many of my pals were from the Erewash Valley area at that time and that' must be where they got it from.

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used a lot in the pits that and yoth my dad used both a lot think serry came from north east and yoth fron yourkshire derbyshire borders hence as pit men moved further south to find work in pits so did the phrases they used.

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Like others have said, this kind of thing must be specific to certain regions because I'd never come across "Serry" before at all; never heard it used or mentioned.

But when babs mentioned "yoth" I remember sometimes hearing that when I was younger, so it had reached as far as Clifton.

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Definitly the Derbyshire, Erewash, Mansfield, Worksop areas.

As most here know I live in W Australia and earlier this year met a couple next to us in a caravan park and he heard me and the wife talking, asked where we were from originally and what a small world, he was from Mansfiled way but had married a Woodthorpe girl and came to oz about 30 odd years ago ! he slipped into Yowth and serrie and a whole lot more ! we had quite a a few happy hours reminising the old Nottm days.

He was going on about missing silly things like potted meat, and Shippams crab paste and heaps more. Said he had bought a case of crab paste and still had a couple of jars left he was saving for a special day !

When I was back there in the uk last year I found some potted meat in Tesco's or maybe Morrisons, but we used to buy it loose from a big bowl from Pork Farms I think, their Salmon paste was also a favourite pack up lunch for me too.

He was also on about Haslet and Black pudding ! Nothing like that here in W Australia.

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I have heard it used instead of a name like Michael. When I lived in Langar, and my old mate Mark, still uses it every time he greets someone.

But I think that must be the limit of it's useage, because Langar is on the county boundary and the people living in the next village, Harby have a Leicestershire accent.

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From the amount of posts here it seems the term "Serry" is still commonly used throughout Notts and Derbys. The reason I originally asked was because I had greeted a fellow Nottinghamian over the internet with "Ayup Serry" and she had no idea what I meant. She is from 1st generation Polish stock, which perhaps has a bearing on the dialect she was brought up with.

As for Banjo48's potted meat - I live in the far north of Scotland and cannot get it here at all; more's the pity :(

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It was in common usage during the 60's Compo.

Banjo, I used to make my own potted beef/meat, it's easy to make and just like Pork Farms used to sell!! Takes a hell of a lot of butter up though!! I also made tomato flavour potted beef, but it tends to go mouldy pretty quickly, so best frozen in small portions.

All you need is leftover beef from your roasts, needs grinding in a meat grinder and fried in a saucepan in butter, add seasoning to taste, put it into small jars when cooked and add some melted butter to cover the potted beef to preserve it

For tomato flavour I use tomato paste to the frying mixture...Delicious on fresh bread rolls.

Potted chicken and turkey are done the same, only probably called pastes.

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You can't beat crab paste...they make a thousand jars at a time out of Lord knows what, then an employee walks round the factory waving a crab on a string for two minutes.

On go the lids and there ya go...genuine crab paste!! :biggrin:

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I've seen some stuff the wife likes, crab portions or summat like it, looked on the label and asked her what imitation crab is...LOL I don't think she ever bought that product again....

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I came across the "serry" address in the Ilkeston area - but they pronounced it "sorry"! I have relatives in both Eastwood and Heanor and they never used the term, but it seemed common among my friends in Ilkeston.

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I was going to say Ilkeston way more than Nottingham for 'Serry'.....'Yooth' being more common round Nottingham.

By the way...anybody noticed on the cop shows over here,unlike their American counterparts who use 'Sir' or 'Madam'... our lot insist on calling everybody 'Mate'. Except of course if a member of the public they don't like calls them that,then you will hear the cop say..."Don't call me mate!".....Double standards?

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I came across the "serry" address in the Ilkeston area - but they pronounced it "sorry"! I have relatives in both Eastwood and Heanor and they never used the term, but it seemed common among my friends in Ilkeston.

This makes sense There is a line in D H Lawrence "Sons & lovers" when one workmate says to another "Shall ter finish, sorry"

The best explanation I found was It was a term meaning chum, mate, widely used in WW1 by soldiers of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Its archaic meaning is to crowd together especialy in military ranks.

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Old character in Thurgarton, Albert Holmes the greengrocer, always addressed men as "Serry"...... I've always assumed it to be a corrution of "Sirrah" which of course is an archaic way of saying "sir". It sometimes came out closer to "Surry" or even "Sorry". My dad used it occasionally with locals but not with "outsiders" as it was of course prone to cause confusion. It was not unusual either to be greeted with "Ow yer doin' Mester". All died out now of course.

Round Ashfield/Mansfield area and the Derbyshire borders, "yowth" was quite common, used to hear a lot of that up at Butterley.

As an aside; one of my regular deliveries, a pet shop in Pontardullais, is run by a Mansfield lad. Naturally when the two of us get nattering it doesn't take more than a second for us to slip into dialect. This once prompted his (very Welsh) wife to remark, jokingly, "I bloody hate it when you two get together, can't understand a word you're on about!" Cue reply from me, "Now you know how WE feel"! :biggrin:

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