Durham & Tyneside Dialect Group / Word Lists / Peterlee C20/mid
PETERLEE & AREA, mid 20th century
This list was supplied in written form by John Sanderson in 2001, as additions to a dialect questionnaire circulated then. John started senior school at Ryhope in 1947, but most of his information relates to the 1950s on, around Easington, though he mentions that his mother and her parents came from Sacriston. The full list is given in John's own words.
bat - "nivor struck a bat" was used in Easington and Horden to describe a lazy sod.
blackie - a blackie was a snot, bogey man or gilbert. Green running snots were called candles
bleb - was often restricted to a blood blister, when you "brayed your finga end" with
the hammer
bide - "if you are not coming bide at yem and sulk"
blind - pronounced blinned: "What's the matter wi thoo ref are ye blind or
what. Thoo wants te get your bloody eyes chalked." why chalked? [checked?]
boody - was used as 'money' by girls when they played 'shops' and 'houses' on the green.
booler - a child's iron hoop usually made at the pit by a friendly blacksmith
'bones' - played between fingers rhythmically were made of slate and called 'knick-knacks'
bray - was also used in the context of broken windows. "That shop had its winders
brayed in on Saturday neet just after Tom brayed ower kidder in after the club shut."
brazen fond and impittent fond - used especially about young boys
bread - breed, dead deed: my grandfather a colliery overman used these words when I
was a boy and he was well read.
browt than brought: "disgraced the family by showing my browt'ns up" (up-bringing)
'carr' sometimes has a specific application to lime rich water supporting willow dominant vegetation.
choz, choss, choller (brilliant, good) - Ryhope School
chuddy (chewing gum) - Easington during the war - also used to name sticks of licorice root
as an alternative to sweets when they were rationed
clash - was also used in the context of falling down heavily and giving oneself a good
dashing and a beating up was also a clashing
clivor - also the response to "What fettle the day, marra?" "Not ower clivvor."
clout - was the dish cloth and also a clout across the lug hole
cogley - described poor writing, unsteady riding of a two wheeler bike and learning to
drive a booler (a hoop)
coin - turn the corner
cracket - was used or invented by coal hewers to rest or lean on their side whilst
working
crake - the miners union meetings were announced by the crake man going round the
streets on a Sunday morning with a big wooden rattle, a crake
croggy (two on a bike) - Blackhall School 1960's - two wheeler bikes were very rare when I was a lad
crowdy - was hen food
cuddy wifted or handed - was commonly used on the cricket field where many right
handed players discovered that their preferred batting or bowling style was left instead
of right... cuddy-handed used in Easington - cuddy-wifted in Ryhope/Silksworth.
cundy - "wor Geordie lost his penker down the cundy alang the double raa"
cushat - was used for a wood pigeon when we were bird nesting in Hawthorn Dene; also
less interestingly as 'woodies'.
cushy cow - known all my life from Seggison to Easington
dad - was used for the clippy mat and the door mat being dadded off the wall or brayed
with a stick on the clothes line to get the dust out
dene - all the steep side wooded valleys in the Magnesian Limestone are called
denes from Ryhope Dene in the north , Hall Dene, Darden Dene, Hawthorn Dene to
Crimdon Dene in the south.
dippy - [of addled eggs]
drarked - was used when you got soaked after rain had been hoying it down
eight, eighty-eight, weight - as in tak the wite [weight].
find - finned, as in blind (see above). If your ma finds out she’ll give you a good hiding
- "she’ll malacise you" i.e. bray the living daylights out of you
fliggied - in the context the young birds have fliggied their nest or you fliggied when
playing knocky nine doors
gallowa - rag and bone men’s horses were always gallowas
gansey - a corruption of Guernsey a style of knitting a fisherman’s sweater cf
Arran
gisa gan - give me a turn, also gisa gleg - let me look
git biggen - any thing of great size
gripe - a fork with flattened tines like a spoonbill's beak used for lifting turnips and potatoes
gully - used by the fish man who came to the door; it had a unique shape.
hippin's - nappies: "Aa warrant thoo hasn't got thee hippins off yet" - of a boastful child
hoggins, wicks, wickens - words used to describe blackberries in abundance
had as in "keep a had" - take care (as the man went off to the pit).
lace - also meant heavily defeated at football or cricket; we got laced or we laced
them
lonnin, lonnen - seen on the old 2 1/2" map of Easington Village where Petwell
Lonnen is marked leading to Holme Hill Estate ('Canada' in Easington Colliery talk)
lukstha klip o that (look at the state of that) - definitely known in Easington
lowp - we lowped over walls and fences
early lowse - early finish [to work]
lumpa - a specfic job could be a lumper or lumba, meaning if it was finished before time you could go home early
mast - our family has used 'mast the tea' for years. But then mother and grand-parents
haled from the aforementioned Seggison (Sacriston) and knew of places such as Cragheed and
Plarsworth not Plorsworth (Plawsworth) and Langley Pairk
mind - as in "I mind the time weel when..."
mowed / stowed off - as in stowed off with homework when I went to Ryhope School
muggles (marbles): Played in the road. "Before you could fire, you had to get your marble in the hole. Then you were parping or scudding. We never used the word 'taw' for the 'shooting' [far ower posh] marble which was called a scudder and the one you had most success with was called 'me best scudder'. Sometimes a glass alley usually marbled white and a colour was called a parper. Our marbles were made of clay, and if someone has a penker - an old ball-bearing - it was banned as it smashed the other muggles." Other terms: sheffs, clears, knuckles down....
myek - you have spelt it as it sounded to my grandmother making pies, or asking the
local blacksmith to "myek us a booler mister"; but what about "makking gam" - pulling
my leg or 'over the top' in common parlance
nebby and "keep your neb" out were familiar to me in Easington probably from my mother and grandparents
proggie - as in proggie mat made with clippings of cloth about 2" long and a progger
as distinct from a hookie mat made with narrower clippings which were as long as the
cloth would allow and a progger with a barbed point to pull the clippings through the
harn or hessian backing
puggied - a nest that was robbed and destroyed was puggied as in 'some rotten bugger has puggied it.'
rowst - get the men to work after their blaa (breather) was finished
shart - grandfather used to pull my leg about my short shart being ower short for me
took some skit - [suffered] leg-pulling
skinch - was common in our street in Easington you crossed your fingers as you
claimed it
smit - was also used in taking a fancy to a young man or woman to the extent that they
eventually clicked and went out steady
snaggers - definitely at Easington Colliery for turnip. A Halloween lamp made from
one was a maggie as in 'Jack shine yor maggie'. The stench of smoked, charred and
burnt turnip was aarful...
sneck - meant nose in Sacriston in the 1940’s
stotting down with rain - used at Ryhope School and East Durham, Sacriston
stumor - common at Ryhope Robert Richardson Grammar School on
the cricket/football pitches to describe an incompetent player [a tattie] or incompetent
goalie who let in a tatie or stumor of a goal especially if it cost the match.
sweets: black bullets - black or sometimes brown spherical boiled
mint sweets made by Welch's of Tyneside called Tyne Mints on the jar. Dolly
mixtures, jelly babies, lickrish torpedoes were 'kets'.
tabs - common use during and just after the war: "gizza a draw of your tab." A butt was
called a dump
teem it - referred to tipping a load of coals, bricks or sand off a lorry or cart in the
street as well as pouring down with rain
twist - was also used instead of rime as in "stop riming on about that" and "don’t twist
yor fyes, I’ve said no"
underkegs - kegs I did not meet with until I taught at Blackhall
wicks - ?plenty/lots "I know where there are wicks or wickens of blackberries"
Other words I have heard and sometimes used:- hint end, hockle no, but cockle yes;
howee as in howee out to play, lathered, palatic as in parlatic, pluffer, raa,
rampageous, roundies, also gizza gander/gleg give me a look or turn,
sunshower, twang as in some one talking affectedly ower posh with a twang or accent
like a fifty shillin piss/pittle pot
I am going to take a blaa... I’ll send some more words when my brain gets gannin agen after too much indulgence