Tout le monde - or as we say down here - "all y'all"

I was entertained earlier this week by this piece at Salon:

The secret history of “Y’all”: The murky origins of a legendary Southern slang word,
The phrase "y'all" might not simply be the shortened form of "you all" — but something far more complex,
by Cameron Hunt McNabb.

Comments following the piece brought several chuckles-out-loud from yours truly, especially when it came to plurals and possessives.

I enjoy "y'all" - don't actually say it out loud, but often find myself writing it in these posts. "Y'all" and "kind of" and "guy"/"guys" are, I think, the only bits of American-speak I've adopted so far. I used to find myself adopting local expressions and inflections quite easily during my wander around Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. I suppose because, back then, due to my work I had to converse quite a lot in real life. Now I don't. I rattle around on the keyboard more than rattling my tongue around my teeth.

I just love it when I hear "y'all", "all y'all" and derivatives of that. It feels warm and comfortable to me. All the chit-chat about formal and informal "you" is for school-rooms. Real people say what they feel like saying. In Yorkshire, decades ago, my grandparents would very often use the old "thou" instead of "you"(but pronounced "thoo" or "tha").

Wikipedia has a version of a rather mean stereotypical old rhyme about Yorkshire folk:

'Ear all, see all, say nowt;
Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;
And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt –
Allus do it fer thissen.

Being translated: Hear everything, see everything, say nothing. Eat everything, drink everything, pay nothing. And if ever you do anything for nothing, always do it for yourself.

Not good advice to live by, y'all!

Saturday & Sundry Thoughts

It's odd that once one becomes aware of something of which previously unaware, it pops up unexpectedly sometimes to silently wave:
"Hello - remember me?"

I mentioned Fuseli's The Nightmare's appearance in the TV series The Fall in my post yesterday - that was the phenomenon in reverse: first the painting then, as I was preparing yesterday's post. its creator popping in to say "Remember this?" This week I was reminded of my January post on Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and their creation, the "cut-up" method in art, literature etc. (See HERE). In the midst of watching the first season of British TV police detective series Luther, in episode 3 (or maybe 4) the detective is seen surrounded by pieces of text, photographs and bits of newspaper cuttings. When asked by a colleague what the heck he was doing he replied, "Trying out "Bowie's cut-up method". David Bowie did use the Gysin/Burroughs cut-up invention in writing some of his lyics during the 1970s.

A conversation with mike, in comments following last Monday's post, got me further thinking about Britain's wide range of accents and dialects, and in particular how often a single term can pinpoint where its user hails from. I'm not sure of the correct term for the particular "place-marker" I have in mind. A term of endearment? No - that's far too intimate. Pet name? Still too intimate. What I'll refer to is the casual mode of address sometimes used by warm-hearted people to strangers or near-strangers (often to females and children but not always). For instance, a waitress to a customer, a bus driver to a passenger, a store-keeper to a customer, casual acquaintance to a casual acquaintance....that kind of address.

If blindfolded on a tour of Britain you could almost guess where you were by the type of casual, warm address being used. In the north-east of England you'd hear "pet" ("Would you like tea or coffee pet?"); in Yorkshire it'd be "luv" ("Hey, you've dropped yer ticket luv!"). In parts of West and South Yorkshire it's "flower" ("Don't forget yer bag flower!")

In the Scottish borders and parts of Scotland it'd be "hen" or "hinney"; down in the beautiful south-west of England you'd hear "my lovely" "lover" or "my 'andsome".
In the middle area of England it'd be "duck" or "mi (my) duck" ("How are you feeling now mi duck?")

I always enjoyed these warm terms of... whatever they were. I've heard women complaining about these modes of address, considering them sexist, demeaning (or something). It's an attitude that strikes me as feminism at its most churlish.

If you enjoy a horror-tinged movie now and again, give The Machinist a whirl via DVD, Netflix or similar. (Beware spoilers at the Wiki page).

Christian Bale (Sun + Mercury/Jupiter in Aquarius) plays the lead brilliantly well, and for this role he lost what would seem like a very unhealthy amount of body weight - probably even more than Matthew McConaughey lost for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. Looking at Bale's usual photographs it's hard to believe he was The Machinist.

We saw ZumaZuma a travelling group of performers from the continent of Africa, on stage at our local theatre on Monday evening. Those taking part came from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Guinea and Senegal. All performed together in an elaborate acrobatic dance, circus and song event.

Huge energy was expended, non-stop, with super African rhythms, and colourful regional costumes, singing, dancing traditional to each region, and some very skilful juggling and acrobatics. Lots of audience engagement - especially enjoyed by the many children in the audience, who had met the travelling group earlier in the day. Zuma Zuma is well worth making the effort to go see, should they happen to be performing in your area.

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.