Amusing dialect stories.

[david weston]

Any amusing dialect stories? Getting across the Sheffield dialect to strangers is impossible if written grammatically correctly. E.G. the well known "In t'Wicker weer t'watter runs oer t'weir" sounds wrong. I'd do it " In't Wicker...etc., the apostrophy 't' joined on to the preceeding word, not the following. Here's one true story. In the early 60's a friend and I had a tandem. We used to go with a father and son who had one also, George and Rodney Cartelege of Carwood Rd. Pitsmoor. One trip was to Chatsworth House where, on the approach, George shouted "Canter see't fountain spoutin' Rodney?" Returning, a driver opened his car door on Waingate as George and Rodney were passing, this threw them off the bike. The driver appologised and said he didn't see them coming, to which old George ( who looked like Arthur Haynes) replied " Din't see us coming? Tha wants ter get dahrn ter Chadburn's in't Wicker then an' get thissen a new pair er glasses !" Nowt wrong wi speakin' proper !!

[chimay]

Surely the thing about dialect is that it's spoken not written so things like placing the apostrophy is down to personal choice. I never did get the hang of apostrophy s's'''sss at school

Edited July 19, 2010 by chimay

[david weston]

Thing is chimay, there ARE a lot of dialect books for all areas of the UK. If they are written phonetically correct, rather than grammatically correct, it helps the stranger better to pronounce it as the locals do. Sheffielders' don't say "In t'Wicker" (twicker), they say "In't Wicker " Must admit, apostrophes still puzzle me, as do semi-colons. G.B.Shaw wrote to T.E.Lawrence ( of Arabia ) chastising him for the over-use of semi-colons in his (Lawrence's) 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' . He said they should be 'irrigated' out (colonic irrigation you could say! Excuse the pun !)

[chimay]

Again it's only phonically correct as orginally spoken. To my ear people said "down t'Wicker" which puts the apostropy t at the start of wicker not at the end of the first word. My owd nan used to put in 2 apostrophy t's so she went "down't t'Wicker" and no one dared correct her! I think dialect books are guidelines not rules.

[Tony]

Somebody seems to have decided that professional Yorkshire is always preceded with apostrophe tee.

 

I can't say that I've ever heard anyone from Sheffield say "down t'Wicker" since up our end the phonetic is "daahn Wikker" with perhaps just the teesnyist tiniest rapid inflection of a 'ter' after 'daahn'... 'daahnterWikker'

 

That said, dialect and colloquialisms change from one village (as was) to the next in Sheffield, especially in the north.

[Greybeard]

The t' is used to represent the faint glottal stop that represents 'the' in Sheffield and other Yorkshire dialects. Dialect speakers generally know how to interpret this when reading dialect in its written form but the ignorant usually try to pronounce the t' using the tongue and teeth - which makes it sound ridiculous.

 

The glottal stop might be better represented by just an apostrophe....

 

daahn 'Wikker weer 'watter runs oer 'weir

[Greybeard]

One of the most entertaining aspects of the Sheffield dialect is the continued use of the archaic informal personal pronouns in everyday speech.

 

Thou - usually 'tha' or sometimes 'thaa'

Thee - often 'thi'

Thyself - usually 'thissen'

and Thy - usually 'thi' or Thine

 

My mother played hell with me if she heard me using these forms as it was considered 'common' by some people, but sixty years ago working class kids were 'common' and you needed to conform to the norm if you were to avoid being ridiculed and even bullied.

 

I was lucky in that my father's father used these forms until his death....and of my mother always said "She's from Totley, - she knows nowt!"

[flyer]

I know I've told before but when my bro' and I moved to Leicester in46 two roughs with a chunk of rope holding our case together,we had to stop and ask a bobby the way, the big fat lump was just busting with laughing ,it was yrs before i got the joke how did he ever decipher our accent,later on at school i was always the one to recite the poems then the class had to fathom out (with the teachers help) what i had just said,it made for a very enjoyable first few yrs in a new school

[sstaniforth]

I have always puzzled as to why us Sheffielders are called "dee dars". I've been told it's because we use "Dee" and "Dar" in speach. For example we would say "nah den dee what dar doin'?" (to mean "excuse me old bean what are you up to?") when really we would say "Nah then thee what thaa doin'?" ???? Anyone agree??

[sstaniforth]

Or rather... Duss thaa agree? - thaa duss, duss thaa?