The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

descendants of the miners who came down from Durham

Folk songs are a great insight into old words ... and you could do worse than listen to (the voice of an angel - Maddy Prior) Steeleye Span ...

So divvent gan near the Seghill mine (Blackleg Miner)
("Gan" meaning "to go" from the German "Gang" ?)

And the sublime "Cam Ye O'er Frae France"

Cam ye o'er frae France? Cam ye down by Lunnon?
Saw ye Geordie Whelps and his bonny woman?
Were ye at the place ca'd the Kittle Housie?
Saw ye Geordie's grace riding on a goosie?

Geordie he's a man there is little doubt o't;
He's done a' he can, wha can do without it?
Down there came a blade linkin' like my lordie;
He wad drive a trade at the loom o' Geordie.

Though the claith were bad, blythly may we niffer;
Gin we get a wab, it makes little differ.
We hae tint our plaid, bannet, belt and swordie,
Ha's and mailins braid -- but we hae a Geordie!

Jocky's gane to France and Montgomery's lady;
There they'll learn to dance: Madam, are ye ready?
They'll be back belyve belted, brisk and lordly;
Brawly may they thrive to dance a jig wi' Geordie!

I'd forgotten how good Steeleye Span are - so thanks. Their 'Gaudete' just made shivers go up and down my spine.

Check out the dialect on this clip about the Outer Banks. In the same area as the Roanoke Colony that I think was mentioned on the previous thread.

I had a boyfriend who was Corby Scottish and (although actually he had a southern accent) firstly there was a lot of backwards and forwards, people would go and live with a granny on Bute for a year or two, and secondly, very large, clannish extended families so if you needed a job doing there would be someone in your family to do it, you didn't often have to go outside the family for things. I suppose that's also why.

Filom is definitely Geordie as I heard my dgf say it.

Just place marking on this fascinating thread

To be fair tabulahrasa I did say 'particularly' Irish friends only because that's my experience, but I didn't mean to exclude any others who say fillum. It was seeing the different spelling that gave context. Can't help you with the other examples though We've moved around a bit and as you say, there are lots of cross overs.

Those Outer Banks bods - they say hoi toide as if they were in Suffolk only yesterday.

Other things, not so much.

If I'd had to guess the accent, I'd have said 'Australian with some influences' - not American of any sort.

Ah dgf 's DM was from Ireland so this would influence his speech.

Fascinating thread, thanks all.

Possibly a bit removed from the topic of conversation, but watching my beloved Scandi dramas often makes me ponder the influence of the Scandinavian languages on Northern English, and especially the Liverpudlian accent. There were times during 'The Killing' and 'The Bridge' that you could absolutely hear where Scouse comes from. There was a particular scene where someone asked 'do you want a cup of tea?’ (in Danish) that was pure Scouse. The inflections are so similar.

Hardly surprising, I guess, given the seafaring connections, but it pleases me nonetheless.

I feel like there's nearly a need for a linguistics thread. It's all so interesting!
I'm from Donegal in NW Ireland and moved to Newcastle, I find it so funny that there are a lot of crossover phrases that you wouldn't find in many parts of England or Ireland. I assume it's because there's a close connection with Scotland in both areas? Things like 'aye' and 'Mam/Mammy' and there are other terms that are similar but different like 'wain/bairn'

I'm also trying to note down the rhymes of the local rhymers at home. They are much in the same format as English Pace Egg plays and even have the same characters (Devil Doubt, Doctor Brown, etc, although in the one that I remember we had Prince George instead of Saint) I wonder when they came over to Ireland, if they are mostly an Ulster thing and I'm assuming they became a Christmas thing rather than an Easter thing through the Wren boys?
The Wren Boys are a thing in rural Ireland (definately the West, I'd also be interested in knowing if it was more widespread than just Connaught) where boys would catch the Wren on St Stephen's day and then go door to door singing a song and collecting money (possibly for charity, certainly for charity nowadays, but probably for themselves back in the day.) I don't know if they actually went to catch a wren or not.

So yeah, anyone with any info on Mummers, Rhymers, Pace Egg Plays and Wren Boys, pass your wisdom this way please.

Oh and round our way, back when my Dad did it, they had hat type things made with straw that went over their whole heads. They'd also dress up in character.

"but I didn't mean to exclude any others who say fillum"

Ah no, I wasn't being nippy - I mentioned where my accent's from because the west coast of Scotland and Ireland do share certain pronunciations, words and phrases and those sounds are more like certain Irish accents and aren't present in other Scottish accents at all.

It was mildly interesting, that's why I added it in, not because I was correcting you at all.

Yes the accent thing is fascinating

I've sometimes wondered if there's a 'speed of delivery' thing that's transferred also? Where we live/come from we apparently talk at a rate of knots. (I haven't noticed because I probably talk fast as well.) Other parts of the country apparently dawdle much more when they're speaking.

I need to catch up on the thread...

But I was thinking today about names, sometimes we get uptight and Katie Hopkinsish on MN about "made up" names for example : that classic "Balonz"

But if as we said on thread one in the Tudor times,

Men were called : Henry, Richard, Charles, William, George, Thomas or Edward

and women : Elizabeth, Anne, Jane, Katherine, Mary, Margaret

were did names that we now think of as "ordinary" English names come from, surely they too were at some point "made up" eg Lucy, Julie, Angela, Abigail.

Wendy is a good example of this. It's commonly accepted as a normal British name but was in fact made up completely by JM Barrie for Peter Pan because the little girl in the family he was close to couldn't say "Friend"

I think there's an absolute ton of saints names, it was pretty common in Ireland to be named after a saint, at least the second name, if you were born on that saint's day. But when did that start becoming popular?

cozie I wonder about the speaking speed thing as well - do we just think someone's speech sounds fast when we don't understand what they're saying? When I hear native speakers of any other language their speech always sounds really fast to me, and I get the same impression from very thick regional accents - I knew a girl from "Norn Iron" who I often couldn't understand at all when she spoke quickly, it was like a totally foreign language! But I know I gabble away too fast as well, people often ask me to repeat myself (I get frustrated by people who talk really slowly )

Wendy is a good example of this. It's commonly accepted as a normal British name but was in fact made up completely by JM Barrie for Peter Pan because the little girl in the family he was close to couldn't say "Friend"

Not a contraction or diminutive of "Gwendoline" ?

No.

It's in one of those Mark Forsyth books

She couldn't say friend so she used to call JM Barrie her "wendy"

Those in your list are French influenced, aren't they?

I find it interesting how few names there were back in the day, especially considering that some are versions of each other eg Elizabeth / Isobel / Isabella

There were some fairly exotic Tudor names in use though - Fulke, Sindony, Avis, Avery, Jasper, Jaquetta, Parnell, Lettice, Barnaby, Ralph.

I suppose Kings' and Queens' names were fairly safe - in fact probably almost obligatory if you were the upper crust or aspiring. Otherwise, I would imagine it was generally either a Biblical name or family name. (If different.)

When I say Biblical, I'm including 'concept' names eg Mercy, Patience, Grace, Temperance etc etc etc.

I suppose Kings' and Queens' names were fairly safe - in fact probably almost obligatory if you were the upper crust or aspiring.

My grandmother had a friend who was definitely in this aspiring category, and she hated "trendy" names, some of which had been given to her grandchildren. She used to say that no one had any business naming their children anything that Queen Victoria would not have considered for her children, with the possible exception of Leopold.