Now avaliable in a handy squeeze tube
I was getting ready to turn my gimlet eye on past world events for a traditional Wisdom Weasel History Friday entry when an email from an old college friend I hadn't communicated with in a decade hit the mailbox. Said friend had googled me with the sole and express intent of talking smack about tomorrow's upcoming fixture between his beloved Chelsea and my equally venerated Norwich City FC (see the The Shrewdness of Apes and scroll down to "All The Way Home" for more on the woeful season of NCFC, or check out either Walter Mondale or myself on the NYCanaries website). The email set me to thinking about my beloved homeland of Norfolk, England and its various cultural totems. This of course pressaged an hour of fevered googling of my own, seeking out the websites of childhood favorites and muttering to myself in the distinct dialect of the land of the Iceni.
If I was as smart as Listmaker I would get myself an Amazon wishlist and add this nugget I unearthed in my trip down memory lane: The Colmans Mustard Cookbook. Those of you Brooklyn types who hunger for good old down home Norfolk cooking, bug Walter Mondale to prepare you dressed crab or stew and dumpings with a slathering of Colmans- I don't know if its in the book but my grandmother does a mean variation on the latter.
But to my main obession tonight: Norfolk words. 10 points a word or phrase, 5 for most inventive guess, for all who deign to tackle definitions for the following list (Mondale, you are disqualified):
Squit
On the huh
Bishy barney bee
Dwile
Rum
Dodman (or Hodmatod)
Bor
Mawther
Blar
Dickey
On the sosh
Rorping
Loke
Keptatometagotaterin
Good luck.
4 comments:
It's the darkest hour before the dawn. I always find myself feeling notably nostalgic/homesick juast around the time winter finally (finally, ahhhh!) turns the corner to spring. In fact, even when I lived in 'the fuck'* i would get a bit melancholy at this time of year, looking forward to afternoons at the beach and leafy strolls through fields and meadows yadyadayada...
With regard to your excellent list of words n' stuff I have a couple of great Norfolok phrases i'd like to add.
"Bloody wars" & "F**kin wars"
Used to describe a particularly unpleasant situation. The idea being that wars are not good , nor is whatever is being referred to. "bloody" being the junior cousin of "f**kin".
eg "Bloody wars! I 've got a flat tyre" or "F**kin wars! someone shot my dog".
I also like "got me wrong" as in " you got me into trouble" "I got wrong cos of you and your big mouth".
As you were.
* "The Fuck" is the local term for the fine and ancient county of Norfolk what we are all mysteriously (no mystery once you've been there) drawn to with all it's personal mythology and stories like looking for a boat in the middle of the night.
I love the way you weave the more modern, rural retard if you will, idiom into our native tongue. To which I would add:
Howdudfuckinsireegerron? The answer today of course is "badly".
We did find that boat though.
Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce Banbury's finest, Mr.Mockney Motormouth, Chelsea fan and part-time Lion of the Punjab (South Asian superheroism doesn't pay the bills, hence the day job in accounting). This is my chum I haven't heard from in a decade. I cringe to see what vile abuse he is going to pile on me for the 3-1 thumping Norwich took from Chelsea on Saturday last.
MM, "talking smack" is to sledge someone. Thanks for the links- I'm going to check them out right now but I suspec they involve being rude to Deliah.
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