Northern Sayings and Where They Came From

Over the centuries, the English language as we now know it has been influenced from all over the place, from French and Latin, to, especially up north, old Norse and Germanic. Us northern folk have often been the centre for much of this language change, and so it’s no surprise that our many wonderfully Northern sayings and slang words have incredibly interesting origins.

DAFT ‘APETH – The affectionately mocking remark is thought to originate in the early 20th Century, coming from an old nickname given to half of the old one penny. It was common for northerners to refer to a halfpenny’s worth as a ‘ha’porth’, and so a ‘daft ha’porth’ is literally a foolish person worth only a ‘ha’penny’.

GINNEL – Just one of the many words us northerners give to the narrow passageway between houses, and indeed just one of its many spellings, ‘Ginnel’ has two possible origins. The first comes from giving the Old English ‘ginn’ (meaning a side opening or abyss) the diminutive suffix -el (so it literally becomes ‘a small empty space’), though the second, and most generally accepted, is that it is a form of the French ‘chenelle’, which has also given us English words such as channel and canal.

EY ‘UP – One of the North’s most well-known sayings, ‘ey up’ is a popular greeting used in and around Yorkshire and the North Midlands. Like many slang terms in the Yorkshire dialect, it’s thought to have its origins in Old Norse languages, with ‘se up’ (meaning ‘watch out’) likely ey up’s original form. The rhyming extension of this expression ‘ey up me duck’ also has its origins around this time, with the term of endearment ‘me duck’ coming from the old Anglo-Saxon words ‘mi ducas’, meaning Lord or Duke.

Like many slang terms in the Yorkshire dialect, it’s thought to have its origins in Old Norse languages

DAMP SQUIB – ‘Squib’ has since been popularised by the Harry Potter books (where a ‘squib’ is a magic-born person who can’t use magic), but the term has its original origins in Elizabethan Yorkshire. At the time, fireworks were known as ‘squibs’, and so a ‘damp squib’ is a wet firework that can’t explode. This likely explains the popular saying ‘damp squib’, now no longer used exclusively up north, which means to underwhelm or to be an anti-climax.

BARM – The ever-controversial debate as to what the correct name is for a teacake/cob/bap/bread roll (and so on) continues, but the term ‘barm’, particularly popular in the North West, has interesting Germanic origins.

It is thought that the term comes from the Old English ‘beorma’, meaning yeast (which itself comes from the Proto-Germanic ‘bhermen’) and was used to refer to yeast-based products, mainly bread and beer. The latter gave rise to the informal insult ‘barmy’, as ‘barm’ also referred to the alcoholic froth on fermenting beers, which was said to have made its consumers go crazy (or ‘barmy’) if they drank it.

DEAD CHUFFED – Chuffed is an interesting word because it has two very distinct meanings – either ‘to be disgruntled’ or ‘to be very pleased’. The latter is its most common usage up North, with its origins thought to be in the 16th Century, with ‘chuff’ being another way to say ‘puffed with fat’, something that would have had more positive meaning in Tudor England (think Henry VIII). ‘Dead’ has supposedly been used as a slang intensifier (in this case meaning ‘utterly’ or ‘extremely’) since 1589, likely due to the intensity and extremity associated with death, and so ‘dead chuffed’ literally means ‘very pleased’.

Its origins are far more recent, introduced in a 1975 episode of the comedy series ‘The Goodies’.

SCRAN – The popular northern slang term for food (that usually isn’t of great quality) is of Scandanavian and Northern Germanic origin – likely influenced by the Old Norse and Icelandic word ‘skran’ and the Danish ‘skrammel’, all of which have meanings tied to rubbish and junk.

ECKY THUMP – Many see this expression as the Lancashire equivalent to Yorkshire’s ‘by gum’. Its origins are far more recent, introduced in a 1975 episode of the comedy series ‘The Goodies’. Titled “Kung Fu Kapers”, the episode features one of the characters becoming the master of the secret Lancashire martial art known as the ‘Ecky Thump’ – which mostly involved hitting unsuspecting people with black puddings whilst wearing flat caps and braces. The episode has long been considered a fan favourite and is infamous, rather morbidly, for causing one poor viewer to die from laughing.

Literally meaning ‘Oh God!’, this famous Yorkshire exclamation is a great example of what’s known as a ‘minced oath’

EE BY GUM! – Literally meaning ‘Oh God!’, this famous Yorkshire exclamation is a great example of what’s known as a ‘minced oath’ (a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately mispronouncing a taboo word to reduce the offence – in this case, ‘gum’ instead of ‘god’). The phrase is first recorded as the title of a 1921 song ‘Eeh! By Gum, It Were a Real Fine Do!’ by the vocal duo Kirby and Hudson, though the origins of ‘By Gum’ up north is thought to date back to over a century earlier, the oldest written example being in an 1815 novel.

NorthernLife May/June 23