English dialect

We have a saying here in 'Smoggieland' ( Teesside )... if you can see the Cleveland hills, it's going to rain... if you can't see the hills...it IS raining...

George.

A similar expression to Mike Poole's relation, my mother, a tailoress by trade, would say on fair weather days "There enough blue up thre to make a Dutchman a pair of breeches"

Bob D

What's wrong with insuting civil engineers? As I tell a friend of mine who is a Fellow of that august body, if a civil engineer designs it and it moves he's in big trouble, we clankies have to make it move, and in a controlled manner. Mechanicals design weapons, Civils design targets

I thought I'd better add a smiley so no-one takes me too seriously!

Edited By duncan webster on 19/09/2017 23:15:35

There is no such thing as a civil engineer- they're rude and socially unacceptable

Dragging this up because my son just had a go at me over a drawing I gave him. Does anybody else still use "shewn" and "shewing" or am I really from the Ark?

Brian

.

You shew Education and Style, Brian

... It's a pleasing conceit.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/09/2017 21:47:56

I think they were shewn the door with rail nationalisation

Neil

The more telling sign of age with your drawings, Brian, will be if they are dimensioned in cubits.

**LINK**

https://arkencounter.com/noahs-ark/size/

MichaelG.

We use the expression 'uneppen' for a clumsy person who tries to push his way through doors marked pull when trying to use things and breaks them.

Females outnumber males in this category by a factor of 10:1.

Edited By Clive India on 22/09/2017 10:12:21

Bob Murray, there's no such thing as civil engineers, they are all M.I.C.E

Ian S C

After coming here, I thought that "Bill's mother's" was located somewhere in the Fens.

In Herefordshire, where I grew up, anyone feeling the cold was "a bit naish". Obviously they hadn't eaten enough "bait" for elevenses or lunch.

And an alley became a snicket if it was long enough to emerge in Sussex. (Although as a child, an alley was also a glass marble)

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 22/09/2017 15:02:13

As a youngster I thought you only found alleys in the USA, where I come from they are lanes.

Neil

In the North East splinters, be they metal or wooden ones were known Spelks. Is this used in other parts of the UK?

In my part of Sussex they were known as twittens.

Russell

A splinter is a skelf in Northern Ireland and Scotland. I'm fortunate never to have had a splinter in my life but have had plenty of skelfs, the wee buggers!

Aren't civil engineers caught by the same rule that affects gentlemen farmers?

They are neither.

Oh dear, I'm sure that will offend someone ...

Tim

Ah, the long debated status of the Engineer. Actually it's perfectly clear. If you consult Dod's Peerage you will find that engineers are listed at the very end (One Hundred and Ninety Third) together with 'others not engaged in manual labour, farming of land, or retail trade'. Engineers are 'considered to possess some station in society, although the Law takes no cognizance of their rank inter se'.

I hope that puts an end to the debate!

Dave

Cheer up, I have had to completely relearn how to spell thanks to this forum.


And being from Arizona (USA) doesn't help.

In the bit of the NE where I come from splinters are spells, never heard spelk, there or in Scotland. My wife , German origin, has trouble still with dialects. She s till can't understand " couple", as in " I'm just going for a couple of pints ".

She ought to. It's literally the same, and colloquially used with the same imprecision, as the German "ein Paar".