CHAPTER XII
IDIOMS AND THE PECULIAR USE OF CERTAIN WORDS

The folk-speech of our county abounds in idioms, and possesses many forms of curious phraseology.

It is these and other peculiarities which add much to its forcefulness, and form one of its main features.

It will be the object of this short chapter to explain some of these usages and idioms.

In writing such a chapter there is one difficulty presents itself—where to commence. There is too much material. As a starting-point, let us take the following remark, which was made to me the other day by an old dame:—

One word with reference to ‘’em.’ Writers on Yorkshire mark ‘them,’ so written, with an elision point (’em).

Is this correct? I offer an opinion for what it is worth. The vocabulary of our people dates back to a very remote period; the same may be said of many of the rules which govern their speech. May not this ‘em’ be a case in point; and instead of being a contraction of ‘them,’ only the plural form ‘hem,’ which they have retained along with many other old-time words?

Wicliff, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, translates as follows:—‘And the younger of hem;’ and a few lines below, we find, ‘and he departed’ (divided) ‘to hem.’ Although our people have not retained in their vocabulary the word ‘departed,’ they have held on to another equally archaic, i.e. parting, ‘partinge,’ to divide. I leave this for others better able than I to decide.

In the old dame’s statement it was said that the lads would not mend their ways. ‘To mend our ways’ is equivalent to saying, ‘improve,’ ‘to grow better’; and to be ‘onny bit leyke’=being reasonable.

In the sentence ‘Yon’s nowt ti mahn,’ the word ‘yon’ signifies ‘that or those over there.’ ‘Yon chap’ is ‘that man over there’; or ‘yon coos,’ ‘those cows over there.’ ‘That chap’ points out a man near at hand; ‘yon chap,’ one who is a greater or less distance removed from the speakers. Hence, ‘Yon is nothing to mine’ tells that the thing spoken of was some distance away. ‘To,’ in the statement ‘to mine,’ is equivalent to ‘compared with,’ i.e. ‘That (one) is nothing when compared with mine.’

‘To’ also=‘for,’ e.g. ‘good ti nowt,’ ‘good for nothing.’ Again, ‘to’=‘this.’ And although to some it sounds odd to hear a farmer say, ‘Wa s’all ’ev a good crop ti year,’ ‘we shall have a good crop to’ (this) ‘year,’ it only sounds peculiar because it is unfamiliar. The same individual who would smile at such usage, would perhaps a moment afterwards ask, ‘what have we to dinner to-day?’ i.e. ‘What have we for dinner this day?’ The usage of the negative in the double, treble, or quadruple form is not infrequent. ‘Ah nivver at neea tahm sed nowt aboot nowt ti neeabody neeaways; Ah’d nivver neea call teea,’ literally, reads thus: ‘I never at no time said nothing about nothing to nobody no way; I had never no reason to;’ or, ‘I never said a word to any one; I had no reason to.’ ‘Ah’d nivver neea call teea.’ ‘Call’=‘reason.’ ‘Ah’ll gi’e him a good calling when he cums in; bud he wants his jacket lacing weel t’ maist ov owt.’ ‘To call’ here=‘to scold.’

‘Sha called ma leyke all that; aye! ivverything ’at sha c’u’d lig her tung teea.’ In this instance, ‘called’ means more than a scolding; it means, ‘to defame,’ ‘to have said of the person shameful things,’ ‘to illify64,’ ‘to speak evil of.’ ‘To lace any one’s jacket,’ is ‘to administer a sound thrashing’; and to say ‘ivverything ’at one can lay the tongue to,’ is to heap upon a person all the opprobrious epithets we can remember or invent. We should not say to a child, ‘What is your name?’ Possibly did we do so, we should be met with a blank stare of amazement. The correct form would be, ‘What do they call you?’ and you would have an answer at once.

We should not say ‘Shout to John,’ but ‘Call of John’; or ‘Thoo’ll ’a’e ti shoot on him looder na that, if thoo aims ti mak him hear,’ i.e. ‘you will have to shout to him louder than that, if you intend to make him hear.’ This word ‘call’ caused considerable bewilderment to one who had to make a complaint to a mother of her son. Being a stranger, the mother replied to him in her best English, but although she managed to divest her speech of much of its usual vocabulary, idiom and the peculiar use of certain words were not so easily laid on one side. She began, ‘It’s ti little ewse, bud Ah’ll call on him, an’ Ah’ll call him well when he cums; bud it’s ti no good my calling him when he does cum, foor Ah’ve called him many a tahm afoor.’

Now, why the good lady should promise to call for him when he had come, and to assure the gentleman it was of no use calling him when he arrived, because she had done so many a time before, didn’t leave things as clear as they might have been. What she really meant to say was, ‘I will shout for him, and give him a scolding when he comes; but really scolding is of little use, as I have done so many a time before.’

A little way back the word ‘aim’ was used—‘if thoo aims ti mak him hear.’

‘Aim’=‘to intend,’ ‘to hope,’ ‘to think,’ ‘to go.’

The word ‘good’=‘easy,’ also ‘considerable.’

‘Good’ also=‘well.’

‘To lap up a thing’ is ‘to conclude,’ ‘finish,’ ‘overcome.’

‘To gi’e ower’=‘to cease.’

‘To be taken’ or ‘having to appear before one’s betters’=‘appearing before the justices.’

‘Bunch’ and ‘punch’ are two words over which mistakes are often made. ‘Bunch’ is to kick with the foot or knee, ‘punch’ is to hit with the hand.

The very common occurrence of changing the past participle passive into the infinitive active, with ‘be,’ is somewhat curious. Instead of saying, ‘it will have to be seen to,’ we should say, ‘it’ll be ti leeak teea’; or, ‘the dog is dead, it will have to be buried,’ would become, ‘t’ dog’s deead, it’ll be ti sahd by.’ ‘To sahd by’ is ‘to bury,’ and ‘to put out of the road’ is ‘to kill.’ ‘Wa’ve ’ed ti put t’ au’d meer oot o’ t’ road.’

As the following bit of information introduces many of our idioms, I will give it as uttered.

‘Thoo maunt let on aboot it, bud oor Tom’s keeping company wi’ Hannah, Mary’s lass; an’ Ah’ll tell tha what, she diz git hersen up when they gan oot. Ah nivver thowt foor oor Tom ti keep company wi’ her; sha’s far an’ awaay t’ best leeaking ov onny on ’em. Aye! byv a lang waay; bud he’s gitten weel in wi’ t’ au’d woman, an’ he can gan an’ hing his hat up onny tahm he ’ez a mahnd teea. Ah’ve gi’en him an inklin’ ’at he mun allus mak hissen mensful, an’ ti think on nivver ti let wit owt aboot Nancy. They ’ed a few wo’ds t’other daay aboot her; it war all alang of summat ’at Jack let slip; an’, mah wo’d, bud Tom did ramp an’ rahve when he gat ti knaw. Sha sed ’at sha wadn’t be played fast an’ loose wi’; bud Ah tell’t him ti feeace it oot, an’ nut git oot o’ heart, an’ fall oot t’ ane wi’ t’ ither ower a larl matter leyke that. Bud he sed ’at sha war grieved an’ vexed an’ putten aboot; an’ moreover ’an that, Ah tell’d him nut ti tak t’ hig, bud ti tak neea ‘count on what fau’k sed, bud ti deea his best ti hit it off, an’ gi’e ower acting leyke ez if he’d gitten a slaate off, an’ nut ti fetch things up, or else sha’d be gi’ing him t’ cau’d shou’der, an’ mebbe gi’ing him t’ sack if he gat her back up; onny road, tha’ve gitten things straighten’d up a bit noo, seea lang ez it lasts.’

To the above list may be added a few others which are equally common:—

‘He’ll be dropping in for ’t yet; bud Ah’ve tell’d him ower an’ up agaan, bud it’s teea neea good.’ ‘To drop in’ has several meanings: (1) To look in—‘Ah’ll drop in an’ see tha tineet;’ (2) punishment—‘Tho’ll drop in for ’t when ta gans yam,’ i.e. you will either be thrashed, scolded, or punished in some form when you go home. ‘Ower an’ up agaan’ is a redundancy for ‘many a time’; ‘to neea good,’ of no use, useless. ‘It’s teea neea good gahin’, ’coz he’s nut at yam’=it is useless going, because he is not at home.

‘If it fairs up thoo maay pop ower ti Jane, bud thoo’ll ’a’e ti mahnd thisen an’ see ’at t’ cau’d dizn’t sattle o’ thi chist; thoo’s a larl piece better ’an what thoo ’ez been, an’ ther’s nowt aboot that; but thoo’ll ‘ ti hap thisen up, thoo seeams a bit closed up ez it is; an’ Ah seear thoo diz leeak a bad leeak, bud thoo’ll cum on neycely if thoo nobbut taks care.’

‘Sha’s cuming on neycely noo, sha’s gitten a to’n foor t’ better, bud Ah thowt it war gahin ti be all owered wiv her yance ower.’

‘Ah war hard set ti git it deean byv t’ tahm.’

‘He sidled aboot t’ Squire whahl he gat his rent sattled.’

‘He’s awlus skewing aboot t’ doctor’s; Ah aim ’at he’s efter yan o’ t’ lasses.’

‘If thoo’s gahin ti be agate, Ah’ll get agate, an’ set agate Matther.’

‘To hang in the bell ropes’ is either the time occurring between the first publishing of the banns, or that during which a wedding may be postponed.

‘To let oneself down’=to perform some action which lowers us in the estimation of others.

‘He’s gitten neea heart i’ t’ job, nivver neeabody ’ez when tha’re rahding t’ deead hoss.’

‘It’s a fine daay, ther’s nowt aboot that; bud Ah’s ’fraid it’s nowt bud a weather breeder.’

‘To look hard at anything’ is to do so earnestly.

‘Noo leeak hard at it, that’s “C,” nut “O”; noo leeak hard, an’ bear it i’ mahnd,’ said an old country schoolmaster.

‘Ho’d on a bit, thoo’s nut gahin’ ti rahd rough-shod ower me.’ ‘Ho’d on a bit,’ spoken in an ordinary tone, means simply ‘wait,’ ‘stay a moment.’ But in case of an argument, its utterance conveys the information that the tongue of one of the disputants is wagging a little too freely, or it may imply, ‘cease speaking altogether.’ E.g. I heard a man say the other day to a fellow workman: ‘Thoo ho’d on a bit, wa’ve ’ed eneaf o’ thi blather,’ i.e. ‘you cease speaking (hold your noise), we have had enough of your silly talk.’ The tone of the ‘thoo’ gave such an emphasis, that there could be no mistaking the command which it implied. On the other hand, ‘Here, Ah saay, ho’d on a bit,’ carries no greater weight than ‘That will do for the present.’

‘To ride rough-shod over any one’=utterly ignoring or treating with contempt their desires and wishes.

‘Wa’ve been tul him, an’ wa’ve tell’t him ez plaan ez wa c’u’d what wa wanted an’ what wa meant ti ’ev, an’ wa didn’t minsh matters nowther; an’ when wa’d deean, he just to’n’d roond, an’ tell’d uz ’at wa mud jump up all t’ lot on uz for owt ’at he cared; he s’u’d gan his awn gate, neea matter what wa sed or did. Ah tell ya what, chaps—it seeams ti me ez if he meant ti rahd rough-shod ower t’ lot on uz.’

‘Ah deean’t reckon mich on him—he diz ivverything by fits an’ starts, an’ ya caan’t lay onny store byv owt he sez he’s at t’ beck an’ call ov ivverybody; an’ he’s fo’st this road an’ then that, whahl yan caan’t pleeace neea dependence on owt ’at he owther sez or diz.’

The following are also commonly heard:—

To conclude. It was said of one, who was somewhat inclined to be a fop,

‘He puts on airs, scrapes his tongue, skews aboot, an’ fancies hissel’ that mich, whahl he’s mair leyke yan ’at’s nicked i’ t’ heead, an’ clean daft, ’an owt else; he maay aim ’at he’s up ti Dick, bud Ah aim ’at he’s nut wo’th his sau’t, an’ Ah’s reet.’

I am certain of one thing—a Yorkshireman, no matter what his position may be, never quite leaves his Yorkshire behind him. I was standing one day waiting for the steamer which was to bring me once again to old England, when a gentleman quite close to me said to his lady companion, ‘It’s a beautiful sight, is the sea67.’ I turned to him, and raising my hat, remarked, ‘Ah’s a Yorkshireman an’ all.’ That was enough, we were friends the whole of the voyage. No, we Yorkshire people cannot, if we would, leave our county behind us. And thank the gods for that.

When cultured speech in tones refined
Lead us to dream all others blind,
‘Tis well that we should bear in mind,
Though we may leave all else behind,
Our idiom goes with us.