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Haway / Ha'Way / Howay / Ho'way The Lads - Origin?


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Jimmy Carter was ‘christened’ a Geordie but his response definitely sounds like “Haway the lads“ even though the unwashed press claimed it was “Howay”
 
I always thought that 'haddaway' was another form of 'bugger off' in pitmatic. It is a dismissive term. Haddaway and shite is a stronger version.
By the way, 'bugger' or 'ya-bugger' is not swearing in pitmatic; it is more like punctuation, to be added for emphasis at almost any point of speech.
So if 'Ha'way' is unlikely to be derived from a dismissive term, I'm inclined to think it comes from 'have way', although the Canadian connection is also a contender given our seafaring history.
'Howay' is simply wrong.
 
TheStatCat said:
Think there was a debate on here a while back as to where this came from.

Personally, I have moaned about the apostrophe in the seats for some years as I could not work out what it could be for. Looks like I was wrong and it really should be there.

A Mag historian mate (sorry) prompted me to have another rake around.

All of these from Sunderland Echo reports:

April 1890
Sunderland Reserves are playing Sunderland Olympic at Newcastle Road, someone encourages the reserve left winger with "How way Ledger".

May 1890
Sunderland are playing Bolton at Newcastle Road just prior to gaining entry to the football league. Our famous centre forward Johnny Campbell is egged on: "How way, Johnny, man!".

September 1894
Sunderland are playing Derby in the infamous game of 3 halves. The encouragement is now more general: "How way my lads".

So it goes goes right back to the early days of the club, and "how way" was a general term of encouragement in those days. Easy to see how it morphed from that to ho'way and ha'way, and the apostrophe lives...

The move to ha rather than ho probably just our mackem accents.
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I have seen an old Tyneside music hall song (I studied these as part of my degree so I do know something about our dialect) quoted IIRC in
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dating from the mid 19th century. One of the main characters says 'Ah! Wey, noo' a lot, and IMHO that's an attempt to transcribe 'haway'.

There's a lot of myth around the origin of the word but here's where I landed. It's a shortening of 'hadaway'. The 'had' isn't actually our modern word 'had' but our modern world 'hold'. The word has a direct antonym in 'had on' (which NE people still say) meaning 'hold on' - which of course is said is standard English. The apostrophe recognises the contraction.

The debate between howay and haway never became a thing until about 10-20 years ago and it has never been the case that the spelling varied between the two rivers / cities until then. Claiming that howay is Newcastle and haway is Sunderland is made-up etymological history as part of the balkanisation of the North East which Thatcher started and it's pathetic.
Grumpy Old Man said:
Most etymologists think it's a corruption of a old coaching/carting phrase "have way", meaning get a move on. There's a similar word in Quebecois - pronounced the same but spelt "aweille", with a similar meaning. Hadaway probably comes from the same place.
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I'm afraid they don't. The 'had' is 'hold' not 'have'
 
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Pantomime Mackem said:
I have seen an old Tyneside music hall song (I studied these as part of my degree so I do know something about our dialect) quoted IIRC in
You must be logged on to see external links
dating from the mid 19th century. One of the main characters says 'Ah! Wey, noo' a lot, and IMHO that's an attempt to transcribe 'haway'.

There's a lot of myth around the origin of the word but here's where I landed. It's a shortening of 'hadaway'. The 'had' isn't actually our modern word 'had' but our modern world 'hold'. The word has a direct antonym in 'had on' (which NE people still say) meaning 'hold on' - which of course is said is standard English. The apostrophe recognises the contraction.

The debate between howay and haway never became a thing until about 10-20 years ago and it has never been the case that the spelling varied between the two rivers / cities until then. Claiming that howay is Newcastle and haway is Sunderland is made-up etymological history as part of the balkanisation of the North East which Thatcher started and it's pathetic.

I'm afraid they don't. The 'had' is 'hold' not 'have'
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You also get “had aboot” meaning “please pause in your analysis and consider alternative hypotheses”
 
Lord Potts said:
I was saying on another thread how my granddad (born 1890) was invited to Broadcasting House by the BBC in 1938. He went there to shout "Ha Way The Lads" for a programme called a "A Scrapbook for 1913" which recalled the events of that year.

The significance of getting me granddad there was that he no only had a voice like a foghorn* but had attended the 1913 Cup Final between The Lads and Villa. The phrase "Ha Way the Lads" was obviously well established as a SAFC chant as early as 1913 and of course was nationally known when he made the recording in the 1930's.

I know other posters have cited earlier instances of "Ha Way the Lads" but to me this confirms for us that it was already associated with us nationally by the early 1900's

Me granddad would have always said "Ha Way" never "Ho Way"

* eat your heart out @hank williams
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Love out like this
 
stan the man said:
I remember hearing me old dad saying hadaway, long before I ever heard Haway.....So, I personally think Haway is a derivative of Hadaway 🤔

(from Collins English Dictionary)
Definition of 'hadaway'
hadaway in British English
Northeast England dialect,
an exclamation urging the hearer to refrain from delay in the execution of a task.
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Simple. Hadaway = Get away.
Haway = Come on . 100% nothing to do with hadaway !!!
mackem35 said:
Thought it was a mining term, when miners going down into the pit would shout half-way so they could get ready to start work. Hence, ha'way would make sense, ho for half makes no sense, not to me anyway. Also, miners coming up would shout ha'way as they would be excited to be finishing work, very similar to our fans, when the team on the attack.
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Wees this. Total rubbish. Obviously never worked down the pit. The cage dropped that fast,like a stone, in total darkness apart from lamps, it was impossible to tell if you were half way down to the pit bottom.
 
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MickeyV said:
I always thought that 'haddaway' was another form of 'bugger off' in pitmatic. It is a dismissive term. Haddaway and shite is a stronger version.
By the way, 'bugger' or 'ya-bugger' is not swearing in pitmatic; it is more like punctuation, to be added for emphasis at almost any point of speech.
So if 'Ha'way' is unlikely to be derived from a dismissive term, I'm inclined to think it comes from 'have way', although the Canadian connection is also a contender given our seafaring history.
'Howay' is simply wrong.
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My dad was a miner for forty years at Easington Colliery. He often used ‘haddaway’, or ‘haddaway man’ to mean something like ‘no way‘, or ‘get lost’.
He never swore at home, or when women or children were about, but he was at work his language was more “salty”
 
Lord Potts said:
I was saying on another thread how my granddad (born 1890) was invited to Broadcasting House by the BBC in 1938. He went there to shout "Ha Way The Lads" for a programme called a "A Scrapbook for 1913" which recalled the events of that year.

The significance of getting me granddad there was that he no only had a voice like a foghorn* but had attended the 1913 Cup Final between The Lads and Villa. The phrase "Ha Way the Lads" was obviously well established as a SAFC chant as early as 1913 and of course was nationally known when he made the recording in the 1930's.

I know other posters have cited earlier instances of "Ha Way the Lads" but to me this confirms for us that it was already associated with us nationally by the early 1900's

Me granddad would have always said "Ha Way" never "Ho Way"

* eat your heart out @hank williams
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Yay'll dee for me I'm having this 👌👌
MickeyV said:
I always thought that 'haddaway' was another form of 'bugger off' in pitmatic. It is a dismissive term. Haddaway and shite is a stronger version.
By the way, 'bugger' or 'ya-bugger' is not swearing in pitmatic; it is more like punctuation, to be added for emphasis at almost any point of speech.
So if 'Ha'way' is unlikely to be derived from a dismissive term, I'm inclined to think it comes from 'have way', although the Canadian connection is also a contender given our seafaring history.
'Howay' is simply wrong.
Click to expand...
Me granda was a pitman he used to say 'why ya bugger man' all the time I never heard him swear ever 👍
 
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