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My Nan's sayings

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My brother recommended the latest Tracey Chevalier book 'A Single Thread' about the 'surplus' single women after the first wold war. It prompted a discussion about my Aunt Nell who was unmarried and about the same age as the women in the book and I remember asking Mom (Nell was her sister) why she wasn't married. Mom said that she had had lots of followers and lots of offers but 'wouldn't have any truck with them'. I haven't heard this expression used by anyone else but Graham said his Mom and Nan used it too. Any idea where this might have originated please?
 
I remember my Nan using that word too @Lady Penelope , no idea where it comes from!
Words like that are interesting aren't they - they are not (usually) in the dictionary but we come to understand exactly what they mean from childhood.
 
My brother recommended the latest Tracey Chevalier book 'A Single Thread' about the 'surplus' single women after the first wold war. It prompted a discussion about my Aunt Nell who was unmarried and about the same age as the women in the book and I remember asking Mom (Nell was her sister) why she wasn't married. Mom said that she had had lots of followers and lots of offers but 'wouldn't have any truck with them'. I haven't heard this expression used by anyone else but Graham said his Mom and Nan used it too. Any idea where this might have originated please?
Truck is a word I have heard many times. I think, but I cannot say authroitively, that it has the same meaning as is used in the laws know as the Truck Acts. These laws forbid the payment of wages to workers other than in cash. This was because many employers were paying in goods such as food or were paying with vouchers that could only be exchanged in the employer's shops. These company shops were called 'Truck Shops' or 'Tommy Shops' and the goods that were sold were called 'Truck'. Often these goods were of an inferiour quality so the word Truck came to mean rubbish.
This is why I think the the phrase 'not having truck with something' meant that it was regarded as worthless.

Incidentally the Truck Act also banned the payment of wages in a public house unless they were employees of the pub.

As more and more people were being paid by cheque or bank transfer the Truck Acts had to be repealed.

Your may know the song 'Sixteen Tons' which Johnny Cash made popular which has the verse

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
 
Do not ask me how I did it but below is an entry from Google, now to darkened room for a lie down

The Phrase Finder

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The meaning and origin of the expression: Have no truck with​


Have no truck with

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Have no truck with'?​

To reject or to have nothing to do with.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Have no truck with'?​

We are all familiar with trucks as carts and road vehicles, but that's not what's being referred to in 'have no truck with'. This 'truck' is the early French word 'troque', which meant 'an exchange; a barter' and came into Middle English as 'truke'. The first known record of truke is the Vintner's Company Charter in the Anglo-Norman text of the Patent Roll of Edward III, 1364. This relates to a transaction for some wine which was to be done 'by truke, or by exchange'.
So, to 'have truck with' was to barter or do business' with. In the 17th century and onward, the meaning of 'truck' was extended to include 'association'/'communication' and 'to have truck with' then came to mean 'commune with'.
'Truck' is now usually only heard in the negative and this usage began in the 19th century. To 'have no truck with' came to be a general term for 'have nothing to do with'. An example of that is cited in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1834:
Theoretically an officer should have no truck with thieves.

'Trucking' was also country slang for 'courting'/'dallying with' (and no, in case you are wondering, it has nothing to do with any similar word beginning with 'f'). To 'have no more truck' meant that a courtship had ceased. An example of that usage in print is found in Notes and Queries, 1866:



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Bob
 
Well Bob, I think you have definitely excelled yourself and answered the question more fully than I could ever have expected. Thank you.

Thanks to David Grain too for his version.

I remember my Nan using that word too @Lady Penelope , no idea where it comes from!
Words like that are interesting aren't they - they are not (usually) in the dictionary but we come to understand exactly what they mean from childhood.
I thought this was a very good point A Sparks. The only other word I can think of at this time was 'piece' which to us means a totally different thing than to other people. I know that there are other words too.
 
If Nan spotted a group of men usually young appear, say in the WMC, she would remark, "Ar see the fleet's in," with a sniff.

"'er's John Bull," or
"'er dow bawlk 'er fancy, meaning she (of a woman) says what she thinks, "'fend or please,".

I wonder how people at the butt of Nan's remarks and other people's remarks were given certain Christian names? I thought the lady up the street's name really was Annie. "It wasn't, "'eer comes pregnant Annie alluz pushin' a pram" or "'alf a crown Lil". Why Annie and Lil? or Mary Jones. At work and at school we had fag ash Lil. Cross eyed Dick. Mad Anna. Dirty Gertie, the rhyme I suppose. And Grandad's 'blige me 'Arriet, after he had belched. Jack the lad.Lucky Jim. Plain Jane. And John Thomas and Moniker, Monica? We had Fat Billy No Mates at work, his name was Andy and he wasn't fat or mateless. Apologies to all the Janes Gerts Lils Annas and Annies Jacks Jims and Dicks Billys John Thomases and Monicas.
 
Well Nico, at home I was 'Mary Ellen' and my brother was 'Johnny Rosser'. Neither of which is anything like our own names.

Also, I know it's not limited to Birmingham, but does anyone know where 'blowed' comes from, as in 'I'll be blowed' or 'I'm blowed if I know'?
 
Well Nico, at home I was 'Mary Ellen' and my brother was 'Johnny Rosser'. Neither of which is anything like our own names.

Also, I know it's not limited to Birmingham, but does anyone know where 'blowed' comes from, as in 'I'll be blowed' or 'I'm blowed if I know'?
I had forgotten those Lady P. and Fairy Ellen, Fairy Fay and Fanny Ann.

Nan's second husband called dad Lobby Lud. Which he hated. Nan also sang Motherrrr Macree!

The French persona Mauricette the only one to have originally got the Covid vaccine, is their version I am told of a Mary Jane.
My mum called one of my friends Janey Flippit.
Irish mate used to say aaagh Janey Mac. Or aaah Janey.
And Mary Bangor.

Blow me down. You could have knocked me down with a feather. My Irish mate says, he's a bit of a blow, meaning a big head. The song Blow The Man Down Bullies Blow The Man Down.
 
Wasn't Lobby Lud the chap that used to walk up and down the promenade at the seaside with a newspaper under his arm. If you approached him and said 'You are Lobby Lud' you won a prize. I bet a lot of holidaymakers with newspapers got approached by mistake.
 
Dead Eye Dick was a character in the poem Eskimo Nell which A P Herbert, the writer and MP, always denied that he wrote.
 
My boss was called Mad Archie. His name was Geoff!
Jack Tar. Crazy Jack. I can see where Paddy derives from but not Taffy or Jock.
Instead of Lord love us Nan said, Lord Lubbus! And she sang, Lord help a sailor on an night like this,in storms.
 
Lady P,

You also had to be carrying a copy of that same newspaper to claim your £5. Just a blatant trick to up the sales of the paper, of course.

Maurice :cool:
 
One of the Poirot TV programmes featured Poirot being mistaken for Lobby Lud, although they may have used a different name.
 
'Ere comes whisperin' Jack Smith. Was he a real person?
Yo'wm a proper Charlie.
Yo'wm a bright 'Erbert.
'Ere I am, Joe Soap. Nan said that when she felt she was being used.
A miserly shop keeper she called Polly Tinker. Nan's dad caught her giving short measures. Always a tad under.
I was called Dew Drop sometimes.
 
Well Nico, at home I was 'Mary Ellen' and my brother was 'Johnny Rosser'. Neither of which is anything like our own names.

Also, I know it's not limited to Birmingham, but does anyone know where 'blowed' comes from, as in 'I'll be blowed' or 'I'm blowed if I know'?
Strangely enough my lunch time task today was to try and solve your question, (only really to stop me keep going back to the Court Lane and Goosemoor Lane pictures posted by Tates) but whilst I could find hundreds of meanings for I'll be blowed, I could not find the etymology or an original source, however while scrolling through various pages related to 'blowed', I came across I'll be jiggered and the origin of that is that jiggered replaced a swear word beginning with B and my twisted mind just wondered if blowed was a replacement for the word that jiggered replaced. It is unusual not to be able to find what you need on Google, however such is life. Oddly enough all the way through 'blowed' has been red underlined as a spelling mistake. Well I'll be blowed.

Bob
 
Strangely enough my lunch time task today was to try and solve your question, (only really to stop me keep going back to the Court Lane and Goosemoor Lane pictures posted by Tates) but whilst I could find hundreds of meanings for I'll be blowed, I could not find the etymology or an original source, however while scrolling through various pages related to 'blowed', I came across I'll be jiggered and the origin of that is that jiggered replaced a swear word beginning with B and my twisted mind just wondered if blowed was a replacement for the word that jiggered replaced. It is unusual not to be able to find what you need on Google, however such is life. Oddly enough all the way through 'blowed' has been red underlined as a spelling mistake. Well I'll be blowed.

Bob
Re your name Lady Penelope. I used to have a problem saying Penelope a a child. It came out as Fenelope. And dad always pronounced it, Penner lope.
 
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