English dialect

English Home Counties dialect translated:

• Scottish = mean, dour, humourless
• Northern = uncouth, incomprehensible and slow-witted
• Black Country = Northern with adenoids
• Welsh = tuneful but sadly addicted to the charms of sheep
• Irish = uneducated
• West Country = yokels
• Norfolk = inbred yokels
• Essex = yokels where the women have loose morals
• All of the above plus anyone else not mentioned = Provincial
• Provincial = uncultured, ignorant, naive, unsophisticated and untrustworthy

Does anybody like anyone else there?

No, of course not.

Southerners are arrogant, supercilious and completely disconnected from the real world. Come to think of it no-one who lives more than 5 miles away can be trusted, and all my next door neighbours are weirdos too. I've heard there are a few decent folk living in Nempnet Thrubwell. Probably just a rumour...

Dave

I note that England never got a sweeping generalisation like the SCOTS, WELSH and IRISH.

Edited By George Clarihew on 17/09/2017 20:05:36

Impossible to make sweeping generalisations about the English. Unlike lesser nationalities we have far more faults to choose from!

Well as a Welsh immigrant living in England I could make some generalisations for you but I haven't got the bandwidth

Neil

(We are one of England's least numerous minorities - try and find out how many Welsh people live in England...)

If the entire population of Wales moved to England, there would still be fewer Taffys in England than Yorkshire people.

And by the way this old story about people in North Wales being unfriendly is complete tosh. I worked there for many years and found them really easy to get on with

Edited By duncan webster on 18/09/2017 00:52:56

I heard "Strong in the arm, thick in the head" relating to Isle of Wight residents, known locally as "caulkheads" or "corkheads" never sure which.

Also, I used to work with a couple of Cornishmen, who happened to have grown up within a (long) stones throw of each other. Each of them reckoned that the other had a weird accent. Obviously, to the rest of us couldn't understand a word either of them said!

cheers

Bill

"D**k in a wellie boot" tends to indicate a rather looser than required fit in our Hampshire workshops. My father being of Sussex &Kent extraction had a lot of local sayings, but CRS means I can't relate any here.

Like a sausage in an alleyway?

Bill, it's caulkhead, as in caulking boats.

I think every village and town has a rival, locally we have Oxford- Swindon, Wantage-Abingdon, Thame-Aylesbury, Chipping Norton and Woodstock. These days it seems to often revolve around football but at one time a punch up on a Friday night at a dance was a regular treat for some. As you drill down into smaller communities more and more factions are found. Maybe we don't like anybody.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 18/09/2017 18:00:18

Over here We have: NorEasterns, Rednecks, Fruits and nuts(some not all Californians),and Hillbillies. We're all good. May have missed a few. I am a Irish redneck Buckeye from Ohio.

A saying I used to hear as a kid when things looked as if they were going from bad to worse was ........."It looks a bit black over Bill's Mother's"

Anyone else come across that?.....and where did it come from?

Quite common around here too, although being southerners we say Will's mother! Definitely to do with black clouds overhead.

Also another common Sussex saying about the weather; "If the Downs look Close, it's going to rain, if you can't see the Downs it's already raining"

Don't forget people from Stoke being clayheads

And as for fit you can't beet: "as lose as a prick in a shirt sleev"

As for finish you have:- "as rough as a Bear's arse". 

Edited By Stewart Hart on 19/09/2017 07:39:44

.

In Birmingham, my family used it often, and I assumed that it was local ... but having since lived in several other areas, I realise it is widespread

Generally refers to dark skies to the East.

A quick search on Google, this morning, found this thread which includes the suggestion that Will was 'William of Orange' ... but I have also seen 'Kaiser Bill' nominated.

**LINK** http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=120578#2623445

MichaelG.

My step grandmother used to say when the weather was clearing that there was enough blue sky to make a pair of sailors trousers.

Mike

As if there weren't enough off-topic but amusing posts showing on this thread.....here's one derogatory and off-topic post from another website. No doubt familiar to many. It related to a modification done to a certain make of German car:-

"That is not Mechanical Engineering, its Civil Engineering. A Civil Engineer has two tools, namely a hammer and a contraceptive. If they cannot use the hammer they f... it."