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The Guardian - UK

Science

Pamela Duncan, Rachel Obordo and Guardian readers

British Library project discovers two new words – thanks to Guardian readers

‘Mardy’, meaning sulky, was one of the words most frequently contributed to the Guardian callout. Composite: digital design

It’s not every day you discover a new word, or at least a new meaning for an old word. But when the Guardian asked its readers to contribute their favourite dialect words, it discovered not one, but two.

“Webs” and “trabs” – both of which can mean trainers and were contributed from Liverpool – were just two of the dialectal words and phrases contributed by Guardian readers following an article about the British Library’s Evolving English WordBank.

The words were not previously known to the British Library researchers who worked on the project, nor do they appear in the English Dialect Dictionary.

“The recently published Liverpool English Dictionary comments on the use of ‘webs’ in the 1950s to mean ‘feet’ but the responses to the Guardian callout would indicate that the word has evolved a new meaning – in this case a related meaning, because you obviously wear trainers on your feet,” said Jonnie Robinson, lead curator of spoken English at the British Library.

“Words extend their meaning or can be reapplied to a closely related concept. So this is an interesting example of a language process”.

The response, Robinson says, shows the “continued relevance of, and great affection for, dialect words and expressions” and highlights examples of the diverse words and terms used in different parts of the country.

A total of 1,200 words and phrases were contributed, 920 of which were unique entries. The British Library found that many of the words and phrases were previously recorded as dialect in sources ranging from the Oxford English Dictionary, the English Dialect Dictionary, the Dictionary of Scots Dialect and many sources in between.

The most frequently contributed words in the Guardian callout were “gitty” and its variations, “jitty” and “jetty” (an alleyway in the east Midlands), “mardy”, meaning sulky and “nesh”, the most succinct explanation of which was “susceptible to cold”.

Graph showing the most popular words contributed to a Guardian dialect callout

The top words came as no surprise to the researchers at the British Library. “The words that appeared most frequently in this callout were also those that occurred most frequently in the WordBank,” Robinson said, referring to a British Library project carried out between 2010 and 2011 which saw people across the country contribute words, many of which can now be accessed on the British Library website.

“Words like mardy and nesh are well established dialect terms that are very regionally based but which are incredibly well known locally and are sources of pride,” he says.

But what of the other, less common, words that made the top 10? “Cruckle”, a variation of “crookle” may not be one that springs to mind for many when they go over on their ankle, but it does have a certain onomatopoetic appeal.

“Spelk”, another word for a splinter, was commonly referred from residents of Hartlepool and Newcastle-upon-Tyne while “scram” (scratch) appears on the list in all its Wenglish glory. And of course any British dialect list would not be complete without someone being “mithered”, a word for pester first recorded in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton.

“Batch”, meaning a bread roll, and “trabs” and “gutties” (both words for trainers donated from Liverpool and Scotland/Northern Ireland respectively) round off the top 10.

Although we received contributions from young and old, the most frequent contributions came from those in Generation X, followed by baby boomers and Generation Y.

Graph showing the generational spread of contributions to a Guardian dialect callout

Robinson says the spread of contributions across the age groups supported the view that dialects are more robust than some might think.

However, he also pointed to the different words contributed by the different generations which also points to how language evolves.

“Siling” meaning raining heavily was the word most likely to be contributed by those born before 1946, while “batch” (for bread roll) was the preferred dialect word among baby boomers. Generation X was more attached to the word “nesh” than any other, while “spelk” came top among millennials.

A word contributed exclusively by Generation Z donors, was “peak”. However, the word, donated from both London and Manchester, is not technically dialect. The distinction, as Rosy Hall, a PhD candidate in linguistics at the University of Oxford points out, is that dialect refers to geographically localised forms while slang refers to forms shared by socially defined groups, in this case youth slang.

Graph showing the words contributed most often by each generation to a Guardian dialect callout

Seven of the words contributed in 2017 have their origins in the first millennium, the oldest of them being “bairn” (meaning child) which appeared in Beowulf followed by “smeech” and “smitch”, which refer to smoke or its smell.

“Thrutch” described variously by the people who donated it as putting a lot of effort into something, straining or moving in a jerky, awkward manner, first appeared in print around 888, according to the Oxford English dictionary.