Search results

’Ow do Elliott, sorry y’dun’t like me typin’, as I never meant it t’upset anyone an’ am surprised y’ve taken offence. Maybe best for ya to ignore me postin’s from now on then, an’ I’ll be sure not to reply t’any more of yours. All I was doin’ was addin’ a bit of Brummie colour, so, like I say...

’Ow do Nico, glad y’liked the recordin’s, there’s another good un of an Aubrey Walton of Perry Common which is a bostin’ comparison to that of Harry Phillips from Small Heath I put up before. I’d ’ave said the former is more like what I think a northern Brummie sounds like, as y’d expect give...

’Ow do Elliott, ar that’s interestin’ about ’em filmin’ that at the Black County Museum’s school – I liked the pic. of the copper an’ the chalk mark where the body was! By the way, did anyone else clock it when Michael said “been out in Maypole”? I thought t’meself, hang on, dun’t us Brummies...

’Ow do muckers. Right then, I trust everyone’ll bear with me whilst I try an’ ge’ t’the bottom of the Shakespearean pronunciation of ‘dignity’ an’ ‘memory’, so that they rhyme with ‘die’. In order t’do this we ’ave t’turn to the research of David Crystal, Honorary Professor of Linguistics at...

’Ow do Parsley & Nico, ar that’s a good point about ‘floor’ an’ ‘door’ bein’ said summut like ‘flo-er’ an’ ‘do-er’, or p’r’aps even more like ‘flow-a’ an’ ‘dow-a’. It’s right an’ all that more often than not these days it’s only older folk that tend t’say things that way, an’ so would be a...

’Ow do David, many thanks for comin’ back t’me about the pronunciation of ‘dignity’ an’ ‘memory’ in the Black Country. Apologies t’other members if we’re startin’ t’go a little off track agen, an’ I ’ope Smudger an’ others dun’t mind too much, but I just want t’clear this up. I mus’ also say...

’Ow do muckers, ar I know what y’mean Nico, with ‘Bobby Dazzler’, an’ ’ow at first glance it does look like it could be linked to ‘Bobby-owler’, an’ thereby to ‘Bobowler’. But, as David says, ‘Bobby Dazzler’ tends t’mean someone who’s smartly dressed, not a moth or butterfly. In the Oxford...

’Ow do Smudger, ar y’right ’ten’t nunk t’do with the Brummie accent – sorry about that! We do seem t’ave gone off on a tangent dun’t we, but in me defence I was only tryin’ to answer David’s query about ‘ooman’ an’ a possible Welsh influence on the accents of the Black Country an’ Brummagem...

’Ow do David, been lookin’ int’things after yer last post, an’ I think I may ’ave found summut of relevance. I’ve got a book ’ere called Word Maps: A Dialect Atlas of England, which ’as a map showin’ those parts of England where the word ‘woman’ is said without the ‘w’: The map, like the...

’Ow do Mike, just a quick en about the snap y’put up ’ere t’replace one that was lost – I believe the one y’show is actually Weoley Castle Farm, with its old mill pond as it looked in the 1930s, rather than Stonehouse Farm. Mind, Bill Dargue’s got a nice en of Stonehouse Farm on ’is site under...

’Ow do David, ar they do ’ave a ‘bws’ over ’ere, which does sound a little like someone from the Black Country, or a broad Brummie, sayin’ ‘buz’ for bus. But I en’t sure y’could claim a direct link, an’ the similarity might just as likely be down to coincidence than actual Welsh influence on...

Been ’avin’ a good ol’ mooch on this ’ere thread, which ’as been really fascinatin’. I think that Wessex is on t’summut in ’is post when ’e talks about Brummagem being on the cusp, as it were, of the accents of southern and northern England, or as JohnO calls it in his postin’ “the fault line...

Ar I thought I’d ’eard ‘cheeky blinder’ an’ all Viv, mind, like Mike, I’ve also come across ‘cheeky blighter’ too! The Oxford English Dictionary certainly ’as ‘blighter’, which it defines as “A contemptible or unpleasant person”, but also says is “often merely as an extravagant substitute for...

Ar I say oil-tot, picked it up from me ol’ man, and use it to mean happy, over the moon, equivalent to ‘in your element’. Apparently, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, this latter phrase is to do with one of the ‘four elements’, though “chiefly of air and water”, so means the...

Bostin’ pics Mike, ta for sharing. Good en of the old Farmhouse, if a little skew-whiff! Whilst the other with everyone sitting on the wagon’s a real boster!! Anyroad, thought I’d add this copy of the old nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey map to things, showing Nonsuch Farm more or less on...

’Ow do one an’ all. Ar that’s what I was saying about it s’posedly being near Arrow, out by Alcester, which would be where the river Arrow is. Mind, if Steven Knight thought it should ’ave been out Coleshill way, then somebody’s geography’s a bit out! Maybe there’s another river or stream...

’Ow do Viv, ar it does look like Aston Hall a little dun’ it, though on a smaller scale. When it switched from the church to the Hall, at the beginning of the first episode in this Series, it was captioned as “Arrow Hall, Warwickshire”. Seems this is purely fictional, but presumably is s’posed...

’Ow do Old Boy, ar y’re quite right about ‘cant’ and ‘canting’ meaning gossip and gossiping, in phrases like “they were ’avin’ a right old cant”, or even just to mean talking or speaking, and, as such, is a proper old Brummie word an’ all. Indeed, a common sight on the streets of Brummagem in...

Ar spot on Maria about there being a Romani element in Polari, though from what I’ve gleaned it’s only a small part of that lexicon. Seems what Romani there is came through the older Parlyaree, which was used in fairgrounds an’ circuses, and which, eventually, made its way into musical halls...

Ar y’re right Maria, the others did get what he meant when he said about his wife Linda being ‘up the Swannee’, though he did also say he was going to be a dad, which kind of made it obvious! Like I said, ’ten’t a phrase I’ve heard meself, well not to mean pregnant anyroad, maybe we need to ask...