Some Odd Words for Yorkshire Day

August 1 = Yorkshire Day! The white rose is Yorkshire's symbol, the red rose is Lancashire's - hence the Wars of the Roses, when two royal houses fought for the throne of England. Friendly rivalry exists to this day between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Female lines of my family history, on both sides, are rooted in Yorkshire, stretch back there for as far as records reach, and at least into the 1500s but for sure, undocumented, well beyond that. People didn't move around a lot back then - at least not yer humble peasant class. I was born, bred and lived in Yorkshire for much of my life, so although the male lines of my family (via both grandfathers) are rooted in the south of England, I can still lay claim to being a Yorkshirewoman.

Hat-tip to photocartoon

 

I'll not waffle on about Yorkshire history - there's a perfectly adequate Wikipedia page for that. Enough to say that Yorkshire, in many ways, equates to Texas in the USA. It's the biggest county, it has lovely landscapes, beautiful coastline, a thriving port, interesting cities, a tradition of industry, sadly mostly long gone (cotton and wool mills, coal mines, steel mills, fishing trawlers, farming). Locals once gave it the nickname "God's Own Country".

My roots are in East and North Yorkshire. The area has strong links to the Vikings who came along after the Romans, Angles, Saxons and Jutes had done with us, sometime around around 793 AD. (See more on that HERE)

The Viking influence lives on, even now, in some local dialects. I found reminders of it at this website: Yorkshire Dialect Words of Old Norse Origin. I remember clearly my grandmother, and my parents, using these terms, plucked from the much longer list available at the link above. I guess a few of these old Norse words could possibly have bled through into parts of the USA too, arriving with early immigrants.

sken: to look at something/someone with screwed-up eyes, peer intently - Swedish sken (to glare), Norwegian skinne (to glare).

slocken: to quench thirst, to drink greedily - Norwegian slokke (to quench), Swedish sluka (to swallow); also Icelandic slökkva (to extinguish, put out) in the sense of quenching. (I also understood this as meaning to have eaten or drank too much and sickened oneself - "I was slockened")

sile, siling : to rain heavily, as in "It's siling down" - Norwegian dialect sila. Also Norwegian and Swedish sila (strain, filter). There is a suggestion here of liquid running quickly through a strainer or filter.

sackless: ineffectual, simple-minded, lacking in energy or effort; also innocent of wrong intent - Old Norse: saklauss.

When I noticed this word I LOL'd. Very early in my time in the USA, in a supermarket with my husband, at the checkout he was asked by the check-out lady if he had a sack ready (sack in US supermarket lingo meaning brown paper or plastic bag). He said "No, I'm sackless"....and I started to giggle, had to wander off outside. I later had to try to explain what had amused me so much - was never quite sure that he understood though.

throng/thrang : very busy. From the Icelandic þröng(narrow, tightly pressed; compelled, forced). Swedish trång (narrow, tight); probably related to the Standard English throng (crowded, to form a tightly-packed crowd, etc.)

thwait(e) village or small settlement - Old Norse tveit. Found now as an element in place names (e.g., Linthwaite, Micklethwaite, etc) . Also thorp(e), t(h)rop village or small settlement - Old Norse þorp Now an element in place names (e.g., Priesthorpe, Knostrop, etc) and as a family surname.

lop :flea - Danish and Norwegian loppe ( flea)

laik, leck : to play. Old Norse: leika. The verb laikin' is used in some parts of Yorkshire (West Yorkshire mainly) for days off work or having no work to do ("He's laikin' today" = "He's not working today").

I well remember this word coming up from a witness at employment tribunal hearings during my 23 years working in that Department, in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and the tribunal chairman gleefully pouncing upon the word and explaining its meaning to those assembled for the hearing.

gimmer: an immature female sheep (before it first gives birth to lambs). Old Norse: gymbr.

I've heard this also used as a rude term to describe an elderly female.

gaum, gawm : heed ("Ee taks noa gawm" = "He takes no heed, pays no attention"); common sense (gormless = lacking in sense) - Old Norse: gaumr

Ah well, I'd best get me sen thrang skenning a few news stories - no more laikin' today.