h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know if it was local to our district, our town or our generation, but we had some VERY odd slang back in the day:

Kali (noun - "kay-lye")
Little coloured tubes filled with sherbet
Lek (verb - "lehk/lehrk")
I think it meant go out or play. I still don't know
Have a monk on (phrase)
Refuse to talk to anyone

And there was the happy day when someone realised that, phonetically, 1F8 sounds like "wunnafaight" which ends up being a proposition to engage in combat if pronounced in our local accent.
There are days when I just don't miss the town I grew up in at all. The people, sure, but the town makes my head hurt.

Also, I'm from Yorkshire. My partner's from the South coast. Every conversation has the potential for education.
"'ey oop cock, how's thee doin'? Aye? Tha's crackin', mate, reet propuh champ'yun!"

'Have a monk on' - that made us laugh. We're going to adopt that in the office. At school, in the Midlands, if someone blushed, they were said to have a 'cherry on'. At the first sight of flushing cheeks, everyone would point and exclaim 'cherry on!' dramatically reddening further the poor vicitm's face.

>>Lek (verb - "lehk/lehrk")
I think it meant go out or play. I still don't know<<

"Lek" is Swedish for "play" or "game" - something left over from a Viking invasion? The verb is "leka".

(Those "lekande barn" signs just mean "children at play".)

>>>"Lek" is Swedish for "play" or "game" - something left over from a Viking invasion? The verb is "leka".

That's really interesting

Similar in Danish: "leg" is a game, "lege", to play.

(That's why Lego is called that, from "leg godt", which means "play well".)

So it sounds like there might be a connection

I'd say there's definitely a connection. I love stuff like this. Little clues to our past.

It's like archaeology.

>>>It's like archaeology

It is!

Yes - I remember Kaylie as a name for sherbert - we also had Lingo-fizz(?) which I think was like lemonade chrystals.

My mother used some strange expressions when we were children. If she was doing something she didn't want to explain her answer to "what are you doing" was "Mekin fools ask questions!" And if asked what it was she had got she would say " a wim-wam for ducks to peak on" Can any one explain that!
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>>>a wim-wam for ducks to peak on

That's quite surreal

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A wimwam for ducks to... I don't even know how to start approaching that. I think that my be how I have to talk to my children if they're being troublesome, though.

Y'know, maybe this is why James Bond is British. No need to faff about with this "the gold eagle soars at daybreak" nonsense when you want to speak in code. Just get a Brit and have them speak in their own dialect and accent.
I'd pay to see a movie with a spy who spoke in nothing but cockney rhyming slang.

Thanks for your welcome - I am finding my way around now and finding some interesting stuff.

>>> Thanks for your welcome - I am finding my way around now and finding some interesting stuff.

Excellent

>>>I'd pay to see a movie with a spy who spoke in nothing but cockney rhyming slang

My old mum used to use the wim wam one - only she always said "it's a wimwam for a windmill" Whether that's because the family were long time millers or not(couple of hundred years or so). She also used to have a book called "Suddaby Fewster and a Reel of Number eight" - two stories in one book - but was all written in East Yorks dialect. I wonder if that is still available?

I've just Googled 'Suddaby Fewster and a Reel of Number eight' and with a bit rooting around I'm sure you could pick up a copy

I'm not sure what it is, but MPs can certainly claim it on expenses.

The expression my Mum used was "A wimwam for a goose's bridle"
I did some research on it ages ago.

It comes from an old english expression.

A wimwam was a silly trinket worth nothing also known as a geegaw

A goose (apparently) was a slang expression for a prostitute

and it's a bridal - not a bridle

So, a wimwam for a goose's bridle is a silly, worthless decoration for an unlikely event,

How's that?

My grandmother's reply to "What's that?" etc was (in German) "Children's questions with sugar on top?"

That reminds me of my favourite architectural term. "Vasistas", French for a transom window.

In German, "Was ist das?" means "What's that?" - and that's where it comes from in French, too, visitors unfamiliar with the feature asking about it first thing when the door was opened

Where do you get all these from Mal?! This latest one is priceless