Tuesday, 6 January 2009

Mind how yiz gan - an epic

My recent attempt to educate Potty Mummy in the art and science of the Geordie dialect reminded me of something I wrote in an earlier lifetime. Thanks to Lakeland Jo, with whom I used to work way back in the 80's in London, this masterpiece has been preserved. She obviously knew I was destined for literary fame and fortune. (I'll be sure to let you know when that happens!)

Anyway, this seems to be an end-of-year ditty, which I should have posted before Christmas. I will post the Geordie version now and the proper English will appear when you've all had a chance to translate this one. Again, no prizes because I know you'll just all go and ask Lakeland, Clippy Mat, Hadriana or Stinking Billy for the answers:

It's me ageeyan hinnies, A bet yiz forgot
It's Buggerallmoney - d'yiz care or wot?
Av had a bad year - yiz wouldn't believe
A just hoowop next year's got nowt worse up its sleeve

Forst there woz wor lass; she chucked iz in June
Am alreet noo, but a woz a bit doon
Iz everyone sez, there's more fish in the sea
But somehoo neebody fancies me

Then, a gorra black eye in a fight
A smacked someone's gob, hell's bells worra sight
A didn't desorve to be hoyed in the cells
Ind me mam fund oot - someone alwiz tells

Me mam hoyed iz oot so A kipped at me meeyat's
He was deed good ind helped iz get streeyat
Noo Av gorra flat of me oowan
Am alreet for spon; Av peeyad off me loowan

Am chuffed last years' ower A woz gettin a bit sick
it's teken it oot iv iz, even tho' Am thick
Al hev a gud Christmas ind treat mesell well
A suggest yiz al dee the seeyam iz well.

Mind how yiz gan noo.


(Please don't tell my mother as I'm still not allowed to talk slang!)

.

19 comments:

  1. mum, nee comments yit so ah thowt ah'd be ya forstfut and ah wrote a bliddy screed, went ti edit thi preview like a pillick amd lost thi bliddy lot.

    But its gud, like, better th'n canny if ye knaa warra mean.

    P.S. Glad you're obviously feeling a bit better today after a good night's sleep. ;-) x

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  2. Glad to know that despite my Cambridge English upbringing and over ten years of expat life, I can still understand this! Hurrah, there's a Brit in the old girl yet!

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  3. why aal ah can say iz, ye gorrit spot on,
    ye spoke the king's englund berra then ah used to cud when ah wiz ah children.
    :-)
    who knew you and lakeland jo worked together?
    did either of you blog about that and i missed it?

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  4. Say what? Watch out, or I'll spring some American on you.

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  5. Gosh jolly hockey-sticks EPM, what the devil are you on about? Just joshing, understood perfectly, what? and one does hope your little Geordie friend managed to stay on the straight and narrow now everything is ship-shape and bristol fashion... Toodlepip!

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  6. Good grief- you have no idea how good it is to see that again. I still love it.
    Others- happy to start a translation service as required. Just ask.
    Expat- you did a translation at the time.I remember it!
    Clippy- I don't think Expat and I have ever declared our past working relationship on the blog. If you bribe me enough I will tell you my nickname for her...heh heh.

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  7. Jo- Yes, I have that and it's coming in the next post. What was the nickname again. I know it was something dreadfully RUDE, but for the life of me....

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  8. Hi Expat mum,
    I'd just like to say that was the slowest I've read a piece of poetry ever!
    I'm still trying to work out what St Billy just said in the comments.

    I think I need a little lie down now, my head hurts from all the activity.

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  9. I remember enough from The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen Pet to understand that poem!

    Did you get sent to elocution lessons to learn to talk proper? I did. My mother was worried I'd pick up a scouse accent. I never did, though I can fake it for people who don't know what it really sounds like. My mother worked very hard to lose her Glaswegian accent so now people think she's from Cambridge (where she did in fact live for many years.)

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  10. It took me a while but I got it. I love an accent and I can do a little bit of most English dialects except brummy! That one is so hard.

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  11. I never realised you were in London the same time I was! Cool beans.

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  12. We had a Geordie Head-of-Halls at uni whose nickname was.....Geordie. A friend asked why he had had the initials Y and I on the back of his hall rugby shirt ;)

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  13. Thanks for the mention, expatmum. Geordie humour...it's like gannin' yem man! stick yer neb in:
    http://www.astbury.org/humour/gwin98.htm (some old Geordie Microsoft jokes but still funny!) Who'd have thought you and Lakeland Jo were werkin' lasses? I should have put two and two together... ;-)

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  14. Oh - fantastic! After just over a year living in Newcastle I actually understand it all! There really is nothing quite like Geordie.

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  15. Hi Expat mum,
    Can you believe I totally understood every word?! (have a Geordie friend back in the UK) very creative post!! ;)

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  16. Thank you for visting my blog.

    Hey I was in London in the 80s too.

    I picked up enough Geordie from a few business trips to Newcastle to understand this.

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  17. Luckily my sister's hubby is a Geordie and he bought me a translation guide when we first met him... but our side of the family 'won' - he is a self-confessed soft southerner now.

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  18. yep, was once married to a Geordie and you never lose it.
    he wasn't allowed to talk like that at home by his mam either!

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