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Miskin Men.

D

District Nurse

New Member
Having just heard the word Miskin on the TV Scotish Lochs program it reminded me of District Nursing in Smethwick in 1960. An old woman with only one eye, limited vision and living alone in a parlous state, informed me that ' the Miskin Men' had taken away her enamel washing bowl with the rubbish - she had used it to catch the ashes under the grate in her open fire range -(she would sit in front of the fire, smoking her woodbines, spitting into the fire, burning her legs with mottled brown spots, and tearing up lumps of linoleum around her chair to burn if she didn't want to go to her cold scullery for more coal). She was quite a character having been, apparently, 'a woman of the night'. That is the first and last time I've heard the word Miskin until now in 2019!!
 
Miskins in this thread:

Miskin Fun

i think this is a wonderful photo folks..typical of the day....absolutely no idea where it was taken ..its just a random one that was sent to me lyn
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
I've read recently that the word 'miskin' derives from a Swahili word for 'poor', so a 'miskin tin' would be the receptacle in which unwanted food and other articles would be placed for distribution to the poor. This may explain why my gran (born 1873) used it, as both her husbands served in the army in South Africa around the time of the Boer War. We've only recently discovered that she lived in Aldershot when she was young, so she'd be surrounded by 'army-speak'.

G
 
Big Gee said:
I've read recently that the word 'miskin' derives from a Swahili word for 'poor', so a 'miskin tin' would be the receptacle in which unwanted food and other articles would be placed for distribution to the poor. This may explain why my gran (born 1873) used it, as both her husbands served in the army in South Africa around the time of the Boer War. We've only recently discovered that she lived in Aldershot when she was young, so she'd be surrounded by 'army-speak'.

G
Click to expand...
Very interesting comment. I believe also that the word "Plonk", cheap wine, was brought back with the soldiers of WW1 who drank Vin Blanc when they were in France and pronounced it plonk. A phrase I have often heard my grand-dad and others of his generation was "San fairy Anne". Again this was a corruption of a French phrase "Ca ne fait rien" meaning it doesn't matter. No doubt there are many examples of "Army speak" that have been and still are used in our rich language, however I have only ever come across the word Miskin in Brum and not in other parts of the country.
 
Only just come across this; a friend of mine, Brummie born & bred, calls her dustbin the "miskin", as did her Brummie mother before her. My maternal grandmother, also Brummie to the core, always referred to it as the"dusttub".
 
Miskin was used by older people in the Black Country and Ladywood and wider Birmingham in the 1960s, often to mean dustbins, but also a rubbish heap or dung heap. The English Dialect Dictionary shows that it was used in many areas of these islands.
Various spellings and apparently from Old English.

MIXEN, sb. and v. Gall. Irel. Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der.
War. Wor. Shr. Hrf. Rdn. Pem. Glo. Brks. Suf. Ken.
Sur. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Also written
micksen Der.2; mixin Chs.3; mixon Lan. Chs.13 Shr.2
Ken.12 Sus.; and in forms maxen Wil.; maxon Ken.1
Sus.12; meckson nw.Der.1; mexen Lan.1 Chs.1 s.Chs.1
Stf. I.W.; mexn Lan.; misken Glo.1 Ken.1; miskin
s.Stf. War.23 s.Wor.1 se.Wor.1 Hrf.12 s.Pem. Glo.; mixtin
Wor.; ?mizen Wxf.1; mucksen Wil.; muxen Wil.1 Som.;
muxon Som. [mi·kən, me·ksən, mi·skin.] 1. sb. A
dunghill, manure-heap; a heap of ashes, refuse, &c. Cf.
maxhill.
Wxf.1 w.Yks. Watson Hist. Hlfx. (1775) 543; w.Yks.124,
ne.Lan.1, Chs. (E.F.), Chs.123, s.Chs.1, Stf. (J.T.) s.Stf. Her's
playin' on the miskin in her clane pinner, Pinnock Blk. Cy. Ann.
(1895). War. Throw it in the mixen (W.H.); Fifteen, sixteen,
Maid's in the miskin, Rhyme (T.C.O.); War.23, Wor. (W.C.B.),
s.Wor.1, se.Wor.1 Shr. Should there happen to be in one corner,
the heap known locally as the ‘mixin,’ White Wrekin (1860)
xix; Shr.12 Hrf. The making of mixens is not properly attended
to, Marshall Review (1818) II. 280; Hrf.12 Rdn. Morgan
Wds. (1881). Pem. (C.V.C.) s.Pem. Laws Little Eng. (1888)
421. Glo. To clean out miskins at nights, Evesham Jrn. (Sept. 5,
1896); Marshall Rur. Econ. (1789); Glo.1, Brks.1, e.Suf. (F.H.)
Ken. (D.W.L.); ‘That is a mixen.’ This I found to be a heap
consisting of stable manure, seaweed, and earth in alternate
layers, N. & Q. (1867) 3rd S. xii. 203; Ray (1691); Ken.1
Properly one which is made of earth and dung; or, as in Thanet,
of seaweed, lime and dung; Ken.2 Here it is more properly
restrained to an heap of earth and dung mixed together. Sur.
N. & Q. (1874) 5th S. i. 361; Sur.1 Sus. He would buy
four ounces of ‘baccer’ and sit on the mixen and smoke it out,
Egerton Flk. and Ways (1884) 15; Ray (1691); Sus.1 He sets
hisself down on the maxon ( s.v. May-be ); Sus.2 A heap of dung
and lime, or mould mixed together for manure. Hmp.1, I.W.
(J.D.R.) Wil. The mixen's good enough for thee, Ellis Pronunc.
(1889) V. 52; (K.); Britton Beauties (1825); He had dug up a
gallon of snakes' eggs in the ‘maxen,’ Jefferies Hdgrow. (1889)
169; Wil.1 Dor. (C.W.); You want one [backbone]... at the
right side for ground-dressing, and one at the left side for
turning mixens, Hardy Tower (1882) ii; Dor.1 Som. (W.F.R.);
Jennings Obs. Dial. w.Eng. (1825); Zo thay flung um on tha
mixen, Agrikler Rhymes (1872) 95. Dev. Moore Hist. Dev.
(1829) I. 354. n.Dev. Let un take Tam'sin to es mixen, Rock
Jim an' Nell (1867) st. 88.
2. Comp. (1) Mixen-heap, a dunghill; (2) Mixen-hole, a hole
for manure, dung, or refuse; (3) Mixen-varlet, a term of reproach.
(1) e.Suf. (F.H.) (2) Chs.1 (3) Gall. Keep wide from me,
mixen-varlet, Crockett Moss-Hags (1895) i.
3. Phr. better wed, or marry, over the mixen than over the
moor, prov. better marry a neighbour than a stranger from
distant parts.
Yks. ‘Better wed over the mixen as over the moor,’ as they say
in Yorkshire, Scott Midlothian (1818) xxxi. w.Yks.24 Lan.
Better [wed] over mixon than over moor, Cheth. Miscell. (1851) 6.
Chs. Ray Prov. (1678) 300; Chs.13 Dor. ‘Well, better wed over
the mixen than over the moor,’ said Laban Tall, Hardy Madding
Crowd (1874) xxii.
4. Fig. A term of reproach to a woman or child.
s.Chs.1 Yŭ lit·l mik·sn [Yŏ little mixen]. Glo. Horae Subsecivae
(1777) 273.
5. v. To clean out a stable, cow-house, pig-sty, &c.
Occas. with up. Cf. mix, v.2
Lan. Aw con mexn... as weel as onny one, Tim Bobbin View
Dial. (ed. 1740) 49; Lan.1 Chs.1; Chs.3 I'm agai't mixening up
the pigs. s.Chs.1 So metaph. of cleaning other places, which are
particularly dirty. Der.2, nw.Der.1
[1. Beggers... naked on mixens, R. Rose, 6496. OE.
myxen, dunghill (Luke xiv. 35); Mixen, meoxen, der. of
meox, mix, myx, dung (B.T.).]
 
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I think not used by Shakespeare. But many words that people feel to be very local dialect can be found in other geographical areas. Birmingham was a town to which many people came to work and brought their usage with them.
 
The Bard definitely never used the word ! Strange that Jack would claim it as dialect form a relatively small place.
 
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