Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group / Word Lists /

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Joan Taylor Phillips, Cullercoats, C20

Joan Phillips has always lived in Cullercoats; her word list includes sayings of her mother and grandmother, part of the local fishing community

Wigs – teacakes
Nammies – turnips
Spuggies – sparrows
Femmer – fragile
Uggen – stinking e.g. of bad fish
Ket – cheap sweets
Niffy-naffs – small cakes, sweet tasty things to eat
Gummerils / bishel-heeds / snoring paddocls – silly, stupid, stubborn young men
Vine – pencil
Cooty – short
Pooty – small [?pretty]
Ower-finninst – opposite
Ower-glowering – overlooking
Clarty – muddy
Claggy- sticky
A sorfit – a nuisance
A pishey – a sly, lying woman
A greet hoyt - a big clumsy girl
Physog – face
By gyell [hard 'g'] – by gum / by jingo
Get a gliff – get a shock
To take the gee [hard 'g'] – machinery to go wrong / person to take the huff
To red up – tidy the house
To bray – to hit someone
To dadd ya jaars – hit someone on the chin
Skelp ya backside – hit a chld on the bottom
To hoy oot - to yhrow out
Ee hoy and aal kep – you throw and I'll catch
A pee-dee – a small woman
Under the braddish – under the stairs
A canny body – a pleasant woman
To get the smit – become infected
She's bad – she's poorly
She's not very clever – she's not very well
Am all te flinders – don't feel well
A cannot pow – eaten too much, cannot move
A warned you've had your tea? – I suppose you've had your tea?
A hoose like Staynshabank Fair – a house in a tip
To be nooled – to be kept down / made miserable
She's got hersel hoosed (or lantered) - to visit a neighbour for an evening gossip
Ye Bishop of Hexham! – Well, I'll be blowed!
Maiden Sorra! (to a female) – Good heavens! What next!
A narration – a noise (of a crowd)
The gam's begun – when breaking wind
Hinnyful borrids! – whatever next!
Stop gorroning – stop making faces
Nickering and laughing – sniggering and laughing
Whee? – who?
Yuk – hook
Gannie – grandma
Gaffie – grandad
A gully – a big strong knife (e.g. for cutting fish heads off)
Hippens – nappies
To speel – to rummage in cupboards/drawers
Gowk – apple core / fool
Stott the baal – bounce a ball
A dowly area – a dark lonely place
A wittridge – a lively cheeky young girl
A warlick – a naughty boy [?warlock}
A lowpy dike – an energetic female, never still
Cowp your creels – turn a somersault [done by kneeling down and bowling yourself over, not a handstand]
Get a good howking – get a good hiding
Scumpfoushed – a feeling of suffocation
A little ched – a naughty little girl
To slinge in – to creep in
A stumour – someone larger than life, a teller of tall stories
A gansey – man's jersey (every village had a different pattern)
To take a-had – to ignite, take fire
To be in your dishabills – a housewife doing her morning chores, wearing a pinny etc.
'Saturday' best – you went shopping to Whitley Bay in your 'Saturday' best in the afternoon; 'Sunday' best was kept for special occasions.