Speak Nottinghamese


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If you want to sing along? Ay up mi duck, ay y got a parnd Gooin darn tarn, meet me at the Lion Vodka through a straw, I'm already pissed up I'll spray some shapes so the girls all act up Gerrup, sta

Just read an article in Nottinghamshirelive about Nottingham sayings, the most famous being “ey up mi duck”. There was one I didn’t recognise, just wondered how many other people know what they mean:

Dobby

Mardy

Manky

Nowt

Summat

Tint/Dint

Mi-sen

Gizza

Twitchell

Nesh

Cob

Gorra bag on - never heard this one myself

Dinna/snap  bit obvious this one, snap was used in South Yorkshire by miners to describe the sandwiches they took down t’pit. 

Tautuzz 

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We offen played dobby an running up twitchel wuz part onnit. Weather dint really stop  us but mardy boggers  were proper nesh if it were coad .  Some  gorra bag on when it were manky and dint go out, specially if there were nowt  else ter do but goz out the window

Tint offen we ad cobs forrus snap, it were sarnies usually when I made em missen

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I have heard them all, used them all and understood all that Brew wrote , not bad to say I was born in Surrey.  Only moved to Nottingham to please my parents when they moved up here, mind you I was only 7 at the time. I went through a lot of hassle because I dint talk propa at fust.

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The majority in Arnold talked proper too!  
None of my family ever spoke with the Nottingham lingo, even the side of the family from the Meadows. Mind you, when calling a Nottingham friend I’ve always started with ‘Ay-up’.
I understand all the words SG has posted but have never heard ‘gorra bag on’ ...... is it the same as ‘gorra gob on’? 

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I worked in Basford for 25 years so I had to modify my accent to make myself understood. One of my co- directors, who was public school educated, often needed me to translate!

 

My parents, both originally from the Meadows via Sneinton Dale never spoke with a Nottingham accent. Neither did their siblings.

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CT but where did the expression actually come from?   .... it must refer to a bag of something not very nice as it’s a negative comment

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4 hours ago, benjamin1945 said:

Gorra bag on.......=...in a mardy mood   

Ok, what I’ve always heard as ‘gorra gob on’ then.  I’ve never used the expression though.  

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The usual expression is "He/She aint arf gorra gob on her/him" or similar - meaning loud and, as Ben sez, prone to mouthing off.

 

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I believe that Nottingham had slight variations of accents in areas quite close to one another. My wife’s uncle born 1900 and lived Hyson Green all his life had a distinctive accent, different but not far removed from my Radford accent. When asked how he was he would always say “I’m all reet”  

At school it was common for some kids to say things like ‘is it yorn’

”it’s mine un” “gerroff” “giz it ere” and “int it ot. I’m not saying I used these, my parents discouraged it and never thought I had an accent but going down south I’m immediately outed as a northerner. 
When I started work in Hucknall there was a very distinctive accent as have Mansfield, Worksop and Huthwaite. Many areas in Nottinghamshire had an influx of people from Scotland Wales and the Northeast to work in the mines and certain expressions and words creep in not strictly native to the local area. 
My grandsons live near Eastwood so I spend time there. I note those born locally will serve you in a shop and ask “what can I get you MY duck” where as the Radford of my youth it was always ME Duck.

My wife still speaks to her childhood friend born, raised and still living in Radford and she still has her accent. It’s not full of geroffs and gizit ere’s but still distinctive. Now TV film and immigration have put paid to many local accents. My father in law still lives in Radford and the local accent is Hindi, Urdu and West Indian patois. 
My wife recalls that at school she was with Mr Cooke in class and asked to think of words beginning with C O. She answered code sir. He said no Jane you mean cold. No she said code like morse code. One nil I think. 

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From what I can remember wasn’t the Sneinton accent very distinctive? I can remember working with a girl who came from there and her accent was quite broad, although it is a long time ago and I might be wrong. 
 
 

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For almost 14 years, I lived in Brinsley at a time when many of the residents were indigenous. They could be difficult to understand at times due to their use of dialect words I'd never heard of.   MY duck, as opposed to MI duck and even now some of it escapes me. From the gossip of years gone by, I understood there had been a lot of inbreeding which led to some rather strange outcomes but I suppose that would apply to any small village in times gone by.  When I first moved there, virtually everyone I spoke to was related to the next person I spoke to!  Quite disconcerting.

 

The situation has changed as those residents have largely passed on or moved elsewhere and far fewer people who live there now were born anywhere near the area.

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Just to add something that might throw some light on accents, a long term study going on this side of the pond, the group recording peoples accents across the nation before most disappear, found regional accents are different by approx one mile distance. They found this during the recordings they made in the north east states in rural areas. Most folk know a NY City accent is different from the Bronx area of NY, as New Orleans accents are varied from the blacks, to the "Cajun"  accents. even here where I live we have varying Arkansas, border Missouri, Ozarks accents.

When I moved from Nottingham to North Yorkshire and worked at Boulby Mine very close to Staithes, the amount of local accents from Middlesbrough to Whitby was pretty pronounced.

Now being away from the old city many years, I'd probably notice different dialects far easier.

Even when I was in Oz, I picked up many different accents/dialects, Tasmania was where I first worked, and mid state accents were different to north coast accents, then on the mainland, a Melbourne accent was different to a Sydney accent, add variations and you'd probably get thousands of accents.

 

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When we moved to our village in ‘62 everybody seemed to be someone else’s cousin. With the advent of newer housing there are lots of people who work in Nottingham and just treat it as a dormitory suburb. I have to remember that I was an ‘incomer’ once and I’m still not the oldest inhabitant. There’s nothing wrong with incest as long as you keep it in the family! :biggrin:

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The 'proper' Eastwood accent has almost disappeared now and has become infiltrated with that very ugly Derbyshire accent from Heanor and Ripley areas. The old Eastwood accent is very much the same as Nottingham accent but is much 'thicker'.

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When i worked for a London (Tooting) based Security company ..as soon as i arrived in the Office it was all ''ey up Duck''  and  ee by gum'' tha knows''' from all the Geezers...great bunch...loved my time with em............

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  • Cliff Ton changed the title to Speak Nottinghamese

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