Are you in a puckaterry?

Many of the words only persist within rural farming communities

By Victoria King
BBC News

A major dictionary publisher is compiling a list of regional English words that have died out. But local dialects are not entirely extinct - as these words reveal.

Have you ever found yourself in a puckaterry or felt wambly after a drink or two?

If so, you're one of a dwindling breed - a user of an English regional dialect.

Where once your vocabulary would tie you definitively to a particular part of the country, the social upheavals of past few decades have stretched those verbal ties to breaking point.

Now dictionary maker Collins is launching a project - using that most modern form of communication Twitter - to try to identify whether there is any life left in a selection of weird and wonderful words.

What sort of words is it trying to find and how did they enter the language in the first place?

PUCKATERRY

In Norfolk, to be in a puckaterry is to be in a muddle or a panic. It is thought to come from the word "purgatory" - the religious place or condition of those neither in heaven nor in hell.

Consequently, as Keith Skipper, from Friends of Norfolk Dialect, explains, it was historically used by people who didn't know whether they were coming or going.

Yowm alis in the lezzer wen yow orta be in the lairne Black Country for 'You're always in the wrong place'

"In Leicestershire, I believe, they have 'pucky wacky' that means the same thing," he says.

"It's difficult to pin down exactly when it originated, but it was certainly in a local dictionary from 1830. I still use it, my family uses it, I've heard several old boys out in the sticks using it. I think the real puckaterry resistance movement is in rural areas."

Broad Norfolk dialect has experienced something of a revival recently in defiance of the way people in the region are portrayed on film and television.

Many are put out, Mr Skipper says, because Norfolk folk tend to be given generic "rural" accents more akin to the South West than East Anglia.

Other Norfolk words include blar, meaning "to cry", and brawk, meaning "to burp".

BARI

The Northumberland dialect comes from Old English - an early form of the English language which dates back to at least the 5th Century - although further south in the county the Norse of the Viking invaders also has an influence.

In words like bari - meaning pretty - there are other influences too, as Kim Bibby-Wilson, of the Northumberland Language Society, explains.

"Bari is a Romany word, a gypsy word, and it's found right across the world," she says.

"It came into use in Northumbria towns like Morpeth, Hexham and Alnwick because that was where the jails were. Gypsy populations grew up around them and their words spread to the rest of the locals.

"You'll still hear some of the older generation using the phrase muckle bari, meaning very pretty.

"Bari actually originally comes from Urdu - it was picked up by gypsies when they spread east into Asia. Another one from Romany which is still in use in Northumberland is 'gadgie'. It's come to mean a miserable old caretaker-type of man, but to Gypsies it just means anyone who is not a Gypsy."

Other Northumberland words include shawm, meaning "to warm oneself" and hippetyclinch, meaning "to limp".

SQUADDY

Lincolnshire's dialect was preserved for longer than others because of its relative isolation.

Protected by the Fens to the south and River Humber to the north, it was sufficiently cut off to have developed several local lingos.

Looks like another dree day at Wimbledon...

Alan Mumby, of the Far Welter'd East Lincolnshire Dialect Society, says one of the words still used is squad - for mud - although it is pronounced to rhyme with bad, not mud.

"We have a cattle market and you'll hear farmers talking about squad, squaddy conditions," he says.

"Another one that we use in the name of our society is far welter'd. It comes from when a sheep with a full coat falls onto its back and can't get up again. You say it's far welter'd.

"It means stuck, trapped in a tricky situation or in a rut, something you can't get out of."

Dr David Britain, from the University of Essex who is working with Collins on the project, says many dialect words have faded as farming has declined.

"Far fewer people are employed in agriculture, even in rural areas," he says.

"And with counter-urbanisation, city people are moving to the countryside and they don't understand local dialect. They either learn it or it drops away - inevitably it's the latter."

Other Lincolnshire words include footpad, meaning "pavement", and roily, meaning "upset of stomach".

OMMUCK

Black Country dialect comes from Old English with some Germanic influence.

Brian Dakin, whose organisation Roosterspake performs songs and readings in the local tongue, says ommuck, meaning sandwich, is still in use.

Are these footballers in a squad or covered in it?

"We have always used it round our way. I think what's so interesting about these words is how isolated they can be to very specific localities.

"Someone somewhere else in the Black Country, not very far away, wouldn't know what an ommuck was.

"A dialect phrase I heard again and again as a kid was 'Yowm alis in the lezzer wen yow orta be in the lairne.'

"Lezzer is field and lairne is lane, so it means you're always in the field when you should be in the lane - in other words you're never where you ought to be!"

Other Black Country words include settul, meaning "home", and wassuck, meaning "fool".

PARZLE

Donald Bemrose, founder of the East Riding Dialect Society, says the traditional East Yorkshire tongue can be very beautiful.

"To parzle, for example, means to saunter or stroll in," he says.

"It's been in our vocab for centuries, but the best example, I think, is in a poem by Francis Austin Hyde. He was a school teacher in Pickering in the 1930s and 40s, and he wrote about a Yorkshire shepherd talking to his dog.

"'Thou has parzled tha way in again', he says, meaning the dog just strolled in looking for attention when he was having his tea. We're not totally sure where parzle comes from, but it's probably to do with paws or pads - the way the dog walks."

Other East Yorkshire words include galasses, meaning "braces" and agglesteans, meaning "hailstones".

DREE

Lancashire's dialect, strongly linked to the region's 19th Century cotton industry, was recorded for future generations in the works of the poet Edwin Waugh.

Brian Foster, from the Edwin Waugh Dialect Society, says he came across the word dree - originally from Old English - in the poet's most famous work, Come Whoam to Thi Childer An' Me.

Did this sheepdog parzle to victory at Crufts?

"He talks about the rain coming down 'very dree'. It means steadily, monotonously. It's like the Scottish 'dreich'," he says.

"I remember my grandmother using it and I might use it occasionally, but I don't think they've been said widely for quite a while."

Dr Britain says while words were undoubtedly disappearing, new dialect was being introduced.

"Immigration definitely plays a part, but also technology," he says. "What do you call you remote control? Zapper, flipper... that sort of dialect is socially rather than geographically defined."

Other Lancashire words include fratching, meaning "arguing" and wambly, meaning "unsteady".

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To take part in the Collins project, tweet your experience of any of these words to @localwords with details of where and when it as used and by whom.

Below is a selection of your interesting dialect words.

Cardiff area - children's soapbox (wheeled cart) is known as a Bogey, whilst about 15 miles west in the town of Aberkenfig it is known as a Gambo. Wales - to cuddle is to cwtch
Peter Walukiewicz, Cardiff

Tummel, as in careful, you'll tummel (from tumble perhaps?). Used frequently by my West-Yorkshire grandparents when watching over us children. Doy/Doi? Used as a term of endearment by my West Yorkshire father to my mother.
Andrea, Preston, Lancs

My wife's family from Dorset often use 'somewhen' such as 'See you somewhen'. Meaning somewhere at some time.
Allan, Wiltshire

My Hampshire nan always used to say "shrammed" meaning absolutely freezing cold, eg "they were all shrammed there waiting for the bus."
Donna, Brighton

Other Black Country words I've found are: Wang (to throw - i.e. wang it over here) Banjo (a sandwich) Bosting (delicious). As a relative newcomer I think I've much to learn!
Duncan, West Midlands UK

I am from Eastwood in Nottinghamshire. 'Sayalukinere' means lets have a look in here. 'Its grey over Bills Mothers' means that the weather is turning bad. I love local dialects and its what makes each region unique, like having a secret and exclusive language that you have to have been a local for a number of years to understand.
Haley

One Shropshire dialect word ( at least I think it's Shropshire) is "orts", meaning the leftovers of a Sunday roast eaten warmed up on a Monday. As in "It's orts for tea tonight." And one which I think is from Nottinghamshire is "mardy" - grumpy or antisocial.
Georgie, Cambridge, UK

I grew up surrounded by a northern New England (US) dialect in which to be "in a pucker" meant to be a great hurry or to impart a sense of urgency. There are several idioms I've heard nowhere else. Traceable perhaps to seafaring lingo or Archadian French.
JR Wheeler, Richmond, Virginia USA

Tossle. This word is peculiar to the town of Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. I have no clue of its origins, but it means forward roll. I had no idea it was a dialect word until my nine year old daughter, who was raised in London, became confused when I praised the "tossle" that she had learnt during a gymnastics lesson at school. Subsequent investigations revealed that my family and old school friends from Ellesmere Port all agreed it was a well-used word in 1970s West Cheshire, but no one outside this circle had ever heard of it!
Stephen McHale, London, UK

It's not just rural communities who preserve their local dialects - so do mining communities. I used to know a guy from Barnsley who had "chucky (hard-boiled) eggs" for his "snap" (light lunch break). When walking in the Peak District one day, I developed a dodgy knee, and, a couple of hours later, so did he. "Tha's smickled (smitten) me wi' tha knee" said he, reproachfully.
Bob D, Leeds, UK

My mother's family is from Wales but she grew up in Reading and commonly used the following words: doo-ver - remote control, tresers - trousers, teain - town, deain - down. There are loads more but they seem to have slipped my memory!
Laura, Swindon

An interesting word I came across recently was "dimpsy", as in , it's getting a bit "dimpsy". It refers to the twilight hour just before it gets totally dark
Martin Thistlethwaite, Torquay, Devon, England

There are two words that I learnt when working in Barnsley, Yorkshire, 35 years ago. They are so apt and apposite that I use them routinely. One is "nesh" - meaning "to feel the cold more than others" and (perjoratively) "to be more miserable than others". Also, "myther" meaning "to worry and fuss about small things (like Martha, rather than Mary in the New Testament". And "plodging in the clarts" from the North East, meaning "splashing and paddling in muddy puddles". Valuable words we must never lose go on and on.
Nonie Westbourne, Olney, Buckinghamshire

I grew up in Cheshire and my parents, both in their 80s still live there. They use the words "bletch", which means the kind of thick black oily gunk that you find on an old bicycle chain and which you get on your trousers if you don't use clips. Another cycling term is "kiggling", from the verb "to kiggle", meaning to wobble on a bike, especially when going uphill and being tired. As in "I saw John kiggling his way up Flag lane".
John Roberts, Crewe, England

My family are from Louth in Lincolnshire and they use the word 'broggle' to describe wiggling a stick in a hole. For example, if you're clearing a drain with a stick, or cleaning your ears with a cotton bud, you're broggling them.
Katie Beardall, Wallingford, UK

My grandmother used to tell me to "stop scrawming about". She came from Leeds. I used the words years later to my son. I think it means a mixture of scrambling and crawling. I also know the term "wimbly wambly" meaning not quite well and rather shaky.
Gill Foster, Scarborough, Yorkshire now living in France