Poll Answers

[wellinghall]

Thanks for all your answers / guesses / suggestions / comments. Several people have rightly pointed out that some form of context would have been helpful for some of these ...

Lurgi / lurgy: Illness, disease (often no more than a cold or rash)
Mardy: Cross, bad-tempered (of a small child)
Owt or nowt?: Anything or nothing? (as in, "What's happening, owt or nowt?")
It's black over (o'er) Bill's mother's: There are dark clouds, portending rain, in the middle distance
Monkey: Fox
Charlie / charlie: Fox again
Aye: Yes
Peedie / peerie: Little (Orkney / Shetland; but I like it)
Haslet / Harslet: I think the description of it as "pork meatloaf" is as good as any; you buy it sliced, and eat it cold in sandwiches etc

Comments

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Lurgy now rings a faint bell, though from what context I cannot recall. I like mardy.*g* Owt and nowt I took to be spelling variations on aught and naught, but It's black over (o'er) Bill's mother's makes me wonder what rhymes with Bill's Mother. Is it a remnant of rhyming slang, do you think?

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say, I hope you're not feeling too miserably coldish.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I am reaching a miserable stage at the moment - I can feel a cup of tea coming on.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

As far as I know Bill's Mothers is an arcane Black Country reference

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

Now that I've looked up Black Country I can well imagine. Thanks!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Not just Black Country - my mother is Nottinghamshire / Derbyshire, and that's who I have heard the expression from most often. I think it's probably a variety of locations in the north and central midlands - and as far as I'm aware, Wolves is the only place that you have lived in that area?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

According to the OED, lurgy was probably invented by the Goons. I like mardy as well - and well recall my mother using of it my sister when we were small. (Never of me, of course! *grins*) Owt and nowt are indeed variations of aught and naught.

I don't know where "Bill's mother's" comes from - I hadn't thought of it as being rhyming slang.

[mrkinch.livejournal.com]

I think I was confusing "lurgy" with my parent's "logey" (not that I ever saw it written), a lethargic, groggy state, as in waking up from a nap.

Have you read Ring of Words, by Gilliver, et al., that I've raved about once or twice? If you love words it's a delight.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have, and enjoyed it. Better than "A Tolkienian Mathomium", which I have just finished.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Lurgy that is particularly bad or annoying, is of course, "The Dreaded Lurgy".

Lurg(h)i must be the Italian version, or a long-lost relative of the mushroom.

Aye could also be said to mean "I agree", which is almost the same as Yes but not quite, IMO. And monkey and charlie mean other things in other dialects too of course...I suspect their meaning as a fox would be very particular to your exact place of upbringing.

& who says mardy refers just to bad tempered small children, it's my middle name ;)

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Where does "Charlie" mean "fox"? (We are talking brown dog-like creature here, vulpes vulpes, right?) I have only come across it once before, in a hunt report sent to me by a friend in the US who's a keen rider and foxhunter (and who has just broken her back in three places). It was written by an American as far as I am aware, and referred to Charlie in a context that made it clear this was the fox. I asked if this was the American equivalent of Reynard, and she said she'd no idea, she'd never come across it before either! And now I discover it's Black Country?? - Neuromancer

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Indeed, the red-brown dog-like creature, vulpes vulpes. I have heard it on the Leicestershire / Lincolnshire border - which is great fox-hunting country, but I haven't heard it predominantly from fox-hunters. The people I have heard it from most often are from Yorkshire - but I've heard it enough from others to make me think that it isn't a particularly Yorkshire term.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

One of the locals I work with uses Reynard when refering to foxes that he encounters when walking his dogs and he lives in Staffs.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I know of Reynard, but am not as familiar with it as the others I mentioned.