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I am involved in a somewhat enjoyable thread on another website, and the main thread is about military words. One word that came up was chatty, meaning dirty or infested with lice. I mentioned that it meant something in Nottingham language too. 

 

There are many references to it being used in WW1 for someone having lice. I think it precedes that by about 100 years, and was possibly back in the Waterloo era. 

 

As usual, I throw this to the experts on all things Nottingham. 

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Many years ago I worked with a guy who had "chats" lice or was reputed to have them and everyone knew him as Chatty head,eventually shortened to Tatty head

 

Rog

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I don't know why I think this, mercury dancer, but I wonder if this term is of Indian derivation . My grandmother's cousin often used it to refer to something that had seen better days and her step father, Arthur, had served with the army in India. Her vocabulary included a number of terms he had obviously brought back with him.  I could be entirely wrong but it sprang to mind when I read your post.

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Chatty is not a word used by my parents; though I have always known of it, so I think I must have heard it said while growing up. I don't use the expression, only in joke, but as far as I know it means mucky. I prefer the good ode fashioned Nottm word.....Detteh.:)

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I've mentioned this before but my Carlton-born mum , used the word "grootled" for anything that was filthy dirty . 

No one else ever seems to have heard it , though I still use it . Her mother was from the Skeggy area so it may have come from there .

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A good word David; I just googled it and had no luck. Perhaps as you say, local to Skeggy. I'm going there for two weeks in September, so I'll be careful who i'm looking at if I feel the urge to say it?

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I've always used chatty in reference to something grubby, disheveled or scruffy.

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In letters my grandfather wrote home from the front in WW1 he makes mention of chats, soldiers slang for body lice. He spent Christmas Day 1917 picking chats off himself. 

I'm Nottingham born and bread and certainly used the word chatty to describe something worn out or dirty as chatty or grotty. 

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I am quite willing to believe that the expression 'chat' was brought back from the front in WW1. The word in French means 'cat', but it also means ' dainty little creature', which could well be soldier's humour - they had to have a laugh about something! 

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We had a local " chatty" person who always smelled awful. My brother in law served him in the bar one morning and asked him if the smell he was wearing was the same smell he wore last year. Gave the locals something to think aboutyada

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Thank you all for the replies. 

 

Its much more interesting a word than I first thought. 

 

For Gem -  the word in this context, as a cheap possession, originates from chattel, which means possession, bot over time referred to the possessions of poor people.

 

Jill Sparrow - I can understand this -  many India words are similar, char meaning to wash, or chai for tea and chit for a small piece of paper.  It seems that the English took the word to India back in the 1850s where it was misunderstood by the India servants as by that time the word had two very distinct meanings. One for louse and one for talking.

 

Earliest reference to chat is chateren in about 1220. Its certainly old english and means to talk with people. Often with no great intention other than to talk. Its in one of the York mystery plays.  "Thoughe I shulde all day tell Or chat with my ryme dogrell" By Cromwell's time a chat was certainly a louse or flea. 

 

Nelsons Navy and Wellington's army certainly used the ward chat for a small biting insect or louse. I suspect that the massive enlistments of WW1 made the word more widespread. The lice too for that matter. 

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There's a stone chat I believe.

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Alan Carr.... Immensely irritating little oik !

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Along with Jimmy Carr, Graham Norton, Johnathon Woss, Boy George, Jo Brand and the most obnoxious turd to walk the planet Russell Brand (they've got to be related somehow) Come the revolution these excuses for celebs/stars would be the first against the wall.

I'm just an old fart now but went to bed a happy man after watching Tommy Cooper last night.

He would surely have had a knighthood by now had he lived.

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