A LIST OF WORDS AND PHRASES IN EVERY-DAY USE BY THE NATIVES OF HETTON-LE-HOLE IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM

Hair Flick

Hair Flick

Striker
Contributor
Apologies for the CAPS in the title but I couldn’t be arsed to type it all in manually.

Bizarre thing I found produced by the University of Salamanca of all places. Comes from an original piece from 1896 by a “sometime curate of Hetton”.

i know Janiep was a fan of North Eastern dialects, along with a couple of others on here.

Plenty of contentious entries in there, especially around pronunciation, but then again, language is an ever evolving beasty so who knows how much things changed in the intervening 125 years?

Anyway there it is for anyone interested in this kind of stuff.

 


Dictionary of phrases doesn't include "wey let", "handaknacker" or "shut yer fyace, shitfyace", which makes me doubt its completeness, if not whether its author has ever actually been to Hetton at all.
 
NYMackem said:
Dictionary of phrases doesn't include "wey let", "handaknacker" or "shut yer fyace, shitfyace", which makes me doubt its completeness, if not whether its author has ever actually been to Hetton at all.
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Fairly sure shitfyace wasn’t used till at least 1897 like.

handaknacker sounds more like something a scallywag from Houghton would say, are you sure you hadn’t gone pat the Burn when you heard it?
 
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Hair Flick said:
Fairly sure shitfyace wasn’t used till at least 1897 like.

handaknacker sounds more like something a scallywag from Houghton would say, are you sure you hadn’t gone pat the Burn when you heard it?
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No, it was in the changing rooms at Eppleton Colliery Welfare CC, used to describe a batsman who had unusually large testicles.
 
Hair Flick said:
Apologies for the CAPS in the title but I couldn’t be arsed to type it all in manually.

Bizarre thing I found produced by the University of Salamanca of all places. Comes from an original piece from 1896 by a “sometime curate of Hetton”.

i know Janiep was a fan of North Eastern dialects, along with a couple of others on here.

Plenty of contentious entries in there, especially around pronunciation, but then again, language is an ever evolving beasty so who knows how much things changed in the intervening 125 years?

Anyway there it is for anyone interested in this kind of stuff.

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Cracking that. Your Grandad would have been 19 by then and probably using some choice picks from that lot
Interesting to see Geordie was a miner, not a scratter from Newcastle.
 
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Billy Fish said:
Interesting to see Geordie was a miner, not a scratter from Newcastle.
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Bede describes the miners of the Parishes of Jarrow and Wearmouth who call themselves Geordies 600 years before newcastle existed.

Interesting as well that "daft" was a NE dialect word and not a common English one.
 
Crack. Talk. “Sit doon an’ let’s heh (hear) tha crack a bit.” To have a ‘bit crack’ is the
invariable way of expressing a bit of a gossip. ‘Not much to crack on’ is the usual
expression for indifferent health. Cp. the lit. ‘crack jokes.’ Also a talker (for this.
cp. double use of the word ‘gossip’). “Thou’s a good crack.”

Having spent more of my life working with Irish groundworkers than living in Hetton I now have the craic
 
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Billy Fish said:
Crack. Talk. “Sit doon an’ let’s heh (hear) tha crack a bit.” To have a ‘bit crack’ is the
invariable way of expressing a bit of a gossip. ‘Not much to crack on’ is the usual
expression for indifferent health. Cp. the lit. ‘crack jokes.’ Also a talker (for this.
cp. double use of the word ‘gossip’). “Thou’s a good crack.”
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Loved reading that, puts to bed the “craic “ debate as well 👍
 
KarenDent said:
One on that list that I haven’t heard in many years is Blacklock I’d totally forgotten that till now. Thank heavens really 🤣😂
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Aye blacklock was definitely one that jumped out. Haven’t seen one in years.

Still not convinced they’ve got every use of “canny” properly documented there mind.

Belong always reminds me of Sundays round my grandmas at Fatfield, listening to my aunty talking about so & so who belongs Chester.
 
Hair Flick said:
Aye blacklock was definitely one that jumped out. Haven’t seen one in years.

Still not convinced they’ve got every use of “canny” properly documented there mind.

Belong always reminds me of Sundays round my grandmas at Fatfield, listening to my aunty talking about so & so who belongs Chester.
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👍

Another couple from my childhood he or she would be told to stop “blaring”and now I know why a “Chucky egg” is so called, I never thought to question it just thought it was another of my parents eccentricities 😬
 
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Billy Fish said:
Crack. Talk. “Sit doon an’ let’s heh (hear) tha crack a bit.” To have a ‘bit crack’ is the
invariable way of expressing a bit of a gossip. ‘Not much to crack on’ is the usual
expression for indifferent health. Cp. the lit. ‘crack jokes.’ Also a talker (for this.
cp. double use of the word ‘gossip’). “Thou’s a good crack.”

Having spent more of my life working with Irish groundworkers than living in Hetton I now have the craic
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Crack or craic is always contraversial.

You'll have the paddy pollis down here shortly as its their first word now
 

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