The Bluestocking - the one where the nights start to draw in

[Boiledbeetle]

Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5401672-the-autumn-bluestocking-mist-mellow-fruitfulness-and-hot-chocolate

Settles down in the comfy chair by the fire.

The thing that always puzzled me a bit was 'going out in your figure', which we used for those rare days when you didn't need multiple top layers.

I’ve never heard anyone say that, but I like it.

I haven't heard that one, Sionnach, but I have heard 'going out in your pin feathers' meaning the same thing.
Pin feathers, as our winged Stockingers know well, are new feathers so little light fully ones.

A lot of these sayings are in books by the late Fred Gamble, who for decades wrote the "John Pepper" column on local dialect in the Belfast Telegraph. But I can remember hearing lots of them first hand from my granny and her generation.

Like the woman who says about a dress "it would have fitted me if I could have got it on".

Or the habitual use of "be", which Shakespeare would have recognised.

Tardy child: The bus bes late
Sarcastic teacher: Bes it indeed?
Child: Aye and some days there bes no bus at all

Putting the tank in tank top.

Has anyone else heard an off-licence being called an outdoor?

This reminds me of a dialogue that sometimes takes place in our House of Pedantry.
DH: Put the kettle on.
ME: I can't, it's not in my size.

Another good one if you're used to cold and wet climates is "my nose was running through a hole in my shoe".

I have heard 'going out in your figure' from my Dublin father over the years.

Any electrical item which could conceivably be "put on" often gets the question "will it fit?" in our house.

I sometimes wonder where a lot of the old phrases come from, if they're Irish or Scottish or used to be more widespread and have just fallen out of use elsewhere.

I fondly remember English class when we were doing Pride and Prejudice and that scene where Lizzy has got caught in the rain, and whoever was doing the book report solemnly explained that she was 'muck to the eyeballs'.

SionnachRuadh Or the habitual use of "be", which Shakespeare would have recognised.
Tardy child: The bus bes late
Sarcastic teacher: Bes it indeed?
Child: Aye and some days there bes no bus at all.

Hiberno-English has carried over a present continuous from the Irish language - 'the bus is late' could be that one specific bus is late, or that it's a crap bus service
In Irish there is a different verb for each meaning, 'tá' for the former, 'bíonn' for the latter.
The continuous form in HIberno-Engish is your 'bes late', and for some reason in County Wicklow, they have their own special form of this: 'do be'
'The bus do be late'. 'It do be cold in winter' etc.
That sounds a bit West Country, doesn't it?

Quite a few of the early settlers in the Plantations of Ireland were from the West Country: just as Derry was 'granted' to London, Dublin was 'granted' to Bristol, so it could have been Bristoldublin! So they may have brought a SW dialect of English over with them. The retroflex r for instance, and perhaps 'do be'.

Ooooh I think it's going to be a long night in Pedantry Corner😁

Terence Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English doesn't include 'figure' but Bernard Share's Slanguage (a better book imo) does, and says it is an Ulster phrase. That suggests my father got it from his mother whose own father was probably from Ulster, though one of my aunts claimed to have located his baptismal records in Dublin. He had a very Ulster name.

Does my father live in your house too? 🤣🤣

See also taking the children to the beach vs bringing the children to the beach.

Lizzie would have been clarried to her oxters the wee cuddy.

Marie - My late FiL worked for the Min of Ag across three counties including Somerset. He was offered some markedly cloudy cider at one farm, and was told ‘That’s where the ‘ens be shitting on the straw be’.

It's a "beer-off" in my dialect.

‘Put the kettle on’ does at least makes sense if you’ve ever used hob or hearth (as Polly did). Other appliances less so.

We might be on verbs for a while, Marie!

I can remember a conversation about elections with someone (a Derry wan as it goes) who asked me "who do you be voting for?"

The West Country influence in Ireland is not very well known. I know there were lads brought in from Cornwall to build the Lagan Canal in the 19th century, and I suppose their descendants are still living around Aghalee.

I'm more alive to the North of England influence because my grandmother had an unusual surname that, outside of the Lisburn area, is really only found in Lancashire. And from studying patterns of migration, those of my family who moved to England only rarely went to London - more often it was Newcastle or Barrow, anywhere with steel and shipbuilding.

I was driving behind a small Renault with a Royal Tank Regiment badge on the back recently, and idly wondering if it was actually a stealth tank, and would suddenly unfold into a Challenger while waiting at the traffic lights, in the manner of a Transformer. Your knitted tank is almost as impressive as that would have been!

Also, for the Burns aficionados, what is the negative of 'Scots wha hae'?

Anyone from Ballymena knows it is 'Scots wha haenae'.

North Devon gravel-tempered ceramics were widely used in late Medieval / Early Modern Ireland (and in America) including as cookware, and were replaced by iron 'bastable' cooking pots, originally from Barnstaple. Big trade networks.

I’m trying to find the dance mix of Ritchie Reno doing Hit the Diff to regale youse all with. Or yee, depending on where you’re from.

Turn that big light out this house is lit up like Blackpool Illuminations.

Which is not the same lit at all as keep ‘er lit and between the hedges.

Fairhill. It’s a big shapping centre in Ballymena hey.

It's a north of the north thing and that's why we also talk about Derry hey.

But it gets even more local than that. Lady Bracknell would only have had a haunbeg if she was east Belfast.

I could live the rest of my life in England and the Sasanaigh would still be able to catch me out by getting me to say 'orange mineral'.

Ah but.

is it

Magherafelt

or

Magherafelt

or

Magherafelt

(which only someone from the north will get)

Ats us nai