'What were they on about?' What Grandparents from Sheffield used to say.

[Mr Pops 10]

My Gran call the gennel .. the 8ft ?

[Plain Talker 11]

My Gran call the gennel .. the 8ft ?

 

My pop calls them eight-foots, too.

[orbs 10]

I called the local gennel the 8ft too, got that off my gram.

[willybite 10]

My Gran call the gennel .. the 8ft ?

 

hiya round our way a gennal (sound like a j ) was open to the sky otherwise if it was inbetween two houses and covered it was an entry.

[grinder 10]

hiya round our way a gennal (sound like a j ) was open to the sky otherwise if it was inbetween two houses and covered it was an entry.

 

And that's where most did their courting in those days....

Edited October 25, 2011 by grinder

[DUFFEMS 56]

And that's where most did their courting in those days....

 

.......and didn't the wind blow down those passages/gennals!

[DerbyTup 10]

"fettlin" = get in there and organise/tidy up

"teem and ladle" = move one thing to another place a back again or "jugging"

i love sheffield dialect

 

My understanding of ladle and teem is that it relates to the movement of liquids specifically, like water.

 

So, for example, we had a Yorkshire range at the side of which was a boiler. The boiler was filled with cold water and the heat from the fire would make it hot obviously. This was the main source of hot water in the house.

 

To be able to use it though, you had to have a method of taking the hot water out of the boiler - there was no connection to any tap or anything.

 

So, we used to have something called a "ladelling can" (often shortened to "laden can"). This was an enamel jug really which probably held about 2 pints of water. You would lift the lid on the boiler and dip the can into the water to fill it, i.e. to ladel the water, and then you would pour, or "teem" it into the washing up bowl, or tin bath, or whatever.

 

I remember back at infant school, we used to have a metal tank full of water and different sized containers in there - like a gill, half-pint, pint, quart etc. We used to ladel and teem from one to another to learn how many gills were in a pint, etc. This lesson was known as "capacity".

[DerbyTup 10]

We had a gennel - a narrow entry between 2 terraced houses. It was great fun as a kid because you could climb up it if you arranged yourself in a star like fashion. You'd jump up with legs apart and have a foot on each side wall and balance yourself with your hands, then you could start to inch up it, moving hands and feet in sync till you got several feet up the wall. I'm no Spiderman btw but I think I could still do it now! If only there were more gennels around!

 

There is an expression that was commonly heard back then and it goes back to the days when many people, certainly in our village, used to keep pigs. My uncle used to be the village butcher and go slaughter them - it was common in those days. The slaughtered pig would be boiled in something called a "copper".

 

Anyhow, before that bit, the pig had to be driven from it's abode to the place of slaughter. Sometimes this involved it being driven down the gennel.

 

The expression, "He /She couldn't stop a pig in a gennel" was used to describe someone who was bow-legged (something that was more common in those days due to ricketts). Or, it could be used less flatteringly with reference to the female who had a reputation for having legs regularly apart, if you know what I mean?

[Cookingfat 10]

what about "scroaming"

 

scroaming meams messing around like on a floor looking for something my dad used to say stop scroming around on the floor

[spider legs 10]

:rant:when my sister and me fell out when we were kids ,

mum used to say ; ill make third man in a minute

[spider legs 10]

i love reading the different topics on sheffield forum , they bring back many happy memories from childhood and future years , lets keep them alive and not forget

[grinder 10]

Da makes a better Doer dan a winder, gerout o rooad...