Always causes blank look from our lass and my step daughter ( midlanders ) when I complain about ‘keens’ in the winter months

Guinevere's Dialect. Keen. A crack in the skin. Usually caused by cold or dryness. OED. It's a form of kin. N & NW English & Scottish. 1st recorded c1400. Keen is the 1800's English spelling. From chine which is an open crack/fissure. Excruciatingly painful.

Much chat on the street WhatsApp about it being slippery. I have suggested slippy & sent them the word map.😆. I live in the SE. I'm expecting much confusion ......😆. I like to remind them there are different words..

Seasonal words. The gritters have been out. It's clearly expected to be slippy. Or, as they say down here, slippery. What's she on about now you wonder. This. ⬇️ From Upton, Sanderson & Widdowson. A Dialect Atlas of England.

Concepts familiar on Tyneside : Banks have feet , tops and no money. Rivers have mouths and are not silent. Cannit does not involve cans. Windows are permanently shut. As are Binns. Those were not for waste. Dog is found in bottles. Bottle Bank is not a recycling facility.

Hepple (up the Coquet" ) means."Land in the river bend where rosehips grow. Rosehips have culinary & medicinal qualities. Recorded as Hephale 1205. Yes, it's a halh/haugh. Lots of those around, including one that thinks 1) it's a heugh & 2) is red. Neither of which are true.

Thropton means "the estate with a throp". Throp being OE for farm, village. & in this sense it being an "outlying hamlet". So an estate with a small outlying hamlet. Recorded as Tropton 1176. Thropton , for the avoidance of doubt, is near Wreighill. 🤣

🤣. I know. However many don't, so I try to give the nearest settlement most will have heard of. Wreighill. For the absolute avoidance of any doubt, at Thropton. I have done Thropton, I'll have to repost that.

Guinevere strides into upland terrain to find dialect. Pike. Not a fish. A pointed or peaked summit, a hill/mountain with such. OED. Chiefly nthn English & Scottish. Early Scandinavian though it's complicated. Also, a beacon or cairn.Rare, though there was one at Wreighill Pike.

Guinevere's Guide to pronouncing Wreighill & Wreigh Pike on the Wreighburn (nr Rothbury). Ray. Recorded as Werghill 1292...felons hill...thought to be where such met their end. A farm now but was a village - much attacked by Reivers and then wiped out by plague. From OE wearg.

Piercebridge. ⬇️ No piercing, progging or thirls.😁. Recorded as Persebrig 1104. Means osier/withy bridge. Persh is flexible branches of willow (osiers) grown for that purpose & also means flexible. Site of a Roman fort with a bridge across the Tees. Those Roman engineers....

Daughter announces friend is in Hartle pool. Ears twitch ! Asked her to repeat. Hartle pool. That will be hart le pool said as all one word. 😆. No hartle's. Quite a complicated place name meaning for one so simple too.....

A bit extra about Boulmer - Boomer, Booma....the name for smuggled gin!

@neheritagelib.bsky.social is at Boulmer....my grandfather shot a white pheasant there about 1920. We still have it. As you do. 🤣 It's 8ft+ above a door frame so apologies for the angle. A stuffed white pheasant!

Guineveres Guide to pronouncing Northumbrian place names like a local. Boulmer is Booma. Means "the bull pond". Recorded as Bulemer 1161. Refers to one of the shallow lagoons on the shore, possibly the one known as Boulmer Haven.

Guinevere's watercourses. The River Lyne. Rhymes with Tyne. S E Northumberland. Mam's home territory. She was born on a farm near it's source. Granma kept ducks & geese & took them down to it to swim. I crossed it every Saturday for 18 years.

Guinevere's Guide to pronouncing seemingly obvious Northumbrian place names like a local. Blyth. Bly to rhyme with fly. However there is an important caveat. Natives may say Blith. There is local, and then there is very local.

Blyth was originally Snoc de Bliemue , 1298 , and le Blithsnoke 1386....Blythmouth Snook - a projection of land at the mouth of the river. Then, Blythemouth. Blyth itself means "the gentle one", referring to the river. Recorded as Blida 1130 and Blythe from 1267. Old English.

Guinevere's Dialect. Snook. OED. A projecting point or piece of land. Recorded 1236. Northern , Scottish and obsolete. Well it might be but it survives in place names. Holy Island has one. Blyth did. There are more.

Sleekburn (both East & West) are named after the Sleek Burn. It means "a sleek, smoothly flowing stream". The burn is a tributary of the River Blyth, which means "gentle one" and the town, originally Blythemouth Snook is named after it.

Guinevere's old & probably obsolete Dialect. Bus. No wheels ! A bush. Whin bus = gorse bush. Also.."a sunken rock on which at very low tides ,the long sea weed is visible, like a bush". Bus/buss is a Scottish & northern variant of bush.( Whin is also a type of hard stone.)

In everyday usage in my childhood. To prog someone. And calling a stick a prog.

Something to translate : "The whin busses wis proggly gan through, aa can tell ye." Source Heslop 1893. Don't all rush at once!

More on thirl. Nostril is....nose and thirl. This thought occurred to me whilst on the dog walk. I've just consulted the OED and yes !

Guinevere seeks guidance pronouncing Thirlwall like a local. I'd say Thur wull. Recorded as Thurlewall 1256. Means "the pierced wall" - a gap in the wall where the Tipalt Burn breaks through high ground. Site of a ruined castle. From proggy mats to nostrils to the wall. 😁

From prog to nostrils...or thirls. OED. A hole, bite, perforation, an aperture. The holes of the nose. Now dialect. From OE pyrel meaning pierced, perforated.. a walk along the Wall is needed now to......a pierced place. 😉

Guinevere's Dialect. Prog. To prick. Also the prickle of a thorn etc. Proggle, Proggy. Progger - a butchers knife. Proggy mats ! OED - British regional & Irish English to prick, stab, prod, poke. A prog was also a weapon/instrument used for piercing etc.

She's uncharacteristically quiet you think. Yes. Son ill. 99 off at his school today ! I fear I am fighting off the bug. I've had roofers in. Plus I'm doing battle with my tax return. Usual wittering will resume when normalcy returns.

Female welder working on the deck of a new ship in Tyneside, 1943, photo by Cecil Beaton (Imperial War Museum).

Guinevere's Dialect. Stife. A suffocating fume or vapour...whether from the oven, down the pit etc. OED. Recorded 1636. Chiefly northern, Scottish and parts of Wales. Also stythe....foul air in a pit.

Crag ✅ Lough ✅

Crag - yes, there is one of those Lough - yup,just out of sight ⬇️. Lake/ pool. Anglo Irish. How to say.... It's *usually* loff in the NE. But, you might hear loch or other sounds. Irish husband says loch with the "ch" ending. In Nth Nland it can be lowf ( think cow). It's a very tricky word !

Walking The Wall today at Housesteads, Northumberland #photography 📷

Not a Pict in sight. View North of The Wall, Housesteads Crags today #photography 📷

In other footballing circles. Fulham. Means "Fulla's river bend". Recorded Fulanham c705. It's been there a long time ! There is a tenuous Percy link.....🧵

For those of a footballing persuasion. Manchester. "The Roman fort Mamucium". Yes, yes, but what's interesting about that. Well...from the Primitive Welsh "mamm", breast. Refers to a breast like hill where the fort was located. 😁

Guinevere puts on her occasional agricultural hat. She grew up on a farm. Yow. Think yowl with no l. That is what the Northumbrian farmer will call a ewe. An accident of accent? No. OED - Middle English, Scottish & Northern dialect. Byre - that's Old English, a cow shed. The word is still used.

Or.....Yow's in the snaa/sner.

Snitter (Rothbury.) Recorded as Snitere 1175. Uncertain meaning. Might be Scandi (there are a few round there.) Might be snipe (birds.) However might be snow related. It's on an exposed ridge. There is an old word snitter meaning to snow, ME spelling sniter. Sounds reasonable. 🧵

And not to wear it indoors as u won’t feel the benefit

Still not warm enough in your simmit ? Consider the warmth of your sark...a shirt, or shart depending on accent.😉 Scottish & Northern. Compare Old Norse serk-r. The famous ship, The Cutty Sark...that means a short shirt or short nightdress ! Then of course, a gansey....😁 .

Layering is an important part of the Big Coat question. Have you put on your winter simmit/ semmit ? Traditionally a vest or undershirt usually made of wool or flannel. Scottish. I am wearing the modern equivalent - a long sleeved thermal t-shirt from M&S.

Much discussion over there about whether it's time to bring out the Big Coat. Important to consider carefully. Don't rush into it. Big Coats are a serious issue. Need to keep in reserve until absolutely necessary in order to receive maximum benefit from it. 😉

Purple Sandpipers on the Northumberland coast. #birds #nebirding #birdsoftheworld

Guinevere's Dialect. Underbearer. One who carries the coffin. It appears this word only survives in Northumberland. Survives?!?!? Yes. ⬇️ from OED. It came to light by accident yesterday on X. Mind blown. We never used "pall bearer". So, tell me - do you know/ use underbearer ?

My southern bred daughter is fully aware of the concept of the big coat and practises it. My son though, he'd happily be out in a t-shirt in all weathers - then again that is a Toon trait too. 😉

Yaaaassss! I love a Dodd place-name!

Guinevere's Dialect. Dodd. A blunt hill or butt end of a hill . "Features 13 times in place names in Northumberland"...Duddo might be one of them. 😉. OED - Nthn & Scottish. From dod which means to make rounded ..& to behead! Not to be confused with dod being a fox!

Guinevere's Guide to pronouncing Northumbrian place names like a local.Duddo. Dud oh. Usually given as Dudda's hill spur but it could be a rounded hill spur, a dod...I'll explain that next. In any event, it's a hill! Dudehou 1208.

Guinevere's weather report from the Thames Valley. It's caad. Or cowld. It's not baltic or starvation. The heavyweight Otterburn Mill blanket went on the bed at 2am. Not an heirloom - bought on eBay. A seller in Gosforth who went to school with my brother! Small world.