Collins Taak of the Toon: How to Speak Geordie

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Wor Markie is about as sharp asa bingo dobber. TRANSLATION: Brother Mark is no Einstein.

bivpreposition, adverb by. Comparedivvent

Ah’ve come to this club biv mesellcos ah nivvor score when ah’m withe lads. TRANSLATION: Lone wolves strike luckiest.

blaaverb1 to blow | noun2 breath; a rest [Northern pronunciation of blow]

The wind is blaain see hard we’dbetter tek a blaa behind the dyke. TRANSLATION: Let us shelter from the elements.

blackclocknoun a cockroach [From black + clock (an obsolete or dialect word for any beetle)]

blebnoun a swelling on human skin that is smaller than a blob; a blister [Possibly a shortening of blob a bubble or blister]

I hoyed the coal in till me handswere aal blebby. TRANSLATION: Hard work has its problems.

bletherverb1 to waffl e; talk nonsense | noun2 nonsense [From Old Norse blathr nonsense]

bletheredadjective wearied; exhausted

bletherskitenoun a compulsive talker [From blether to talk nonsense + skite a detestable person]

That bletherskite is mekkin melugs hort. TRANSLATION: Please connect brain before engaging gob.

bloggedadjective blocked

Wor drains is blogged and there’sa reet stink. TRANSLATION: Avoid our place of residence in the immediate future.

bogeynoun1 a small non-motorized vehicle made by small children; a go-cart 2 a large motor vehicle used to transport industrial materials [Perhaps related to buggy, originally a two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle]

Wor kid’s bogey is made oforange boxes and pram wheels. TRANSLATION: My brother’s go-cart is no Beamer.

boilynoun1 soup 2 a hot drink made with milk and pieces of bread, given especially to infants and sick people [From French bouillon]

boneverb to ask (someone) a question [Perhaps related to boon a request or favour asked]

Ah’m ganna bone him aboot thatbet. Mebbees he nivvor put iton…TRANSLATION: Perhaps he trousered our money knowing the horse had no chance.

bonnyadjective1 beautiful or handsome 2 excellent; first rate 3 drunk [French bon good]

Yee were bonny last neet, yer legswere plaited. TRANSLATION: The alcohol you drank did nothing to help your dancing style.

boolnoun1 a bowl 2 on the bool on a drinking session | verb3 to have sex

He had a bool of porridge thenwent oot on the bool. TRANSLATION: He filled up on oats and went out to sow them.

bordnoun1 a bird 2 a young woman

borstverb burst

Had yer rotten tongue or ah’llborst yer gob. TRANSLATION: Silence is advisable unless you’d like a visit to intensive care.

bouldy-holenoun a glory hole; coal hole

bowdy-kitenoun a pot belly [Perhaps from bowl and kite meaning ‘belly’]

Are yee expectin’, Mavis, or isthat bowdy-kite doon to theBroon?TRANSLATION: Is your protuberance down to procreation or recreation?

bowkverb1 to belch 2 to vomit [From Middle English bolken]

brayverb to thrash; beat up [From Old French breier break, pound]

breednoun bread

broonorBroonnoun Newcastle Brown Ale

bubbleverb to cry

bubbly-jocknoun a turkey [Perhaps rhyming slang for ‘turkey cock’]

bulletnoun a type of small sweet [Purportedly because they resemble the bullets that killed Nelson]

bummlornoun a bumblebee

He dances as though he had abummlor doon his keks. TRANSLATION: Give that man 100% for effort.

byekverb to bake

byeutsplural noun boots

Wor Chick gans ti the dance in hispit byeuts, sez it stops the lassesdaddin’ his toes. TRANSLATION: My friend is more practical than stylish.

WOR HISTORY AND WOR HEROES (#u4ec9d050-fc84-5f0f-90e7-37a4c245c08a)

I suppose the first Geordie was the Venerable Bede who sat in his monastery at Jarrow about 1200 years ago and described the pillaging Vikings in much the same way as Toon football supporters describe the Mackem hordes: daft lads who go berserk after a couple of lager shandies. There is, in his works and the writings of his isolated pals on Lindisfarne, a sense of tribe that has come down through the ages, a sense of ‘ganging up’ against the rest of a hostile world. I like to think of Bedey and a few of his muckers drying off their quills, sloughing off their hair shirts and swanning along to a pleasant Saturday night hop in Bamburgh. Drop of mead, quick Gay Gordons with the local talent, then back in time for a cold shower and a mumbled matins…

Moving to the colourful hectic age that Shakespeare immortalized, we have the doughty figure of Harry Hotspur, a cross between Lord Lucan and Arthur Scargill, part wild-child, part local hero. He spent his time fighting for whatever king was in power in London or sitting in Warkworth Castle planning to join the Jocks and invade London. Harry also had a terrible problem with pronouncing his Rs. So his granny made up this verbal mantra – one that many of us still use as an exercise today. ‘Roond the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.’ It is best attempted by pushing out the cheeks like a hungry gorilla and trying to get imaginary claggum (chewing gum) off the base of the tongue.

The identity of Geordies became crystallized as sea-borne trade, particularly in coal, developed on the Tyne. Nowadays the ‘bonny lads’ who strut their stuff along the Quayside are rich footballers, legal eagles or IT wizards – all fat knots and designer stubble – but around 1750 the cocks of the walk were keelmen. These were an elite band of experts who rowed boats full of coal to and from merchant sailing ships in the Tyne. They had their own guild and their badge of honour was a blue bonnet, set off with a red neckerchief and silver shoe buckles. They earned top dollar, were known to enjoy a swallow or three, and occasionally broke the hearts of the ladies. Nobody knows why the legendary ‘Bonny’ Bobby Shaftoe – trained on keels but later a seafarer – went off over the briny, but I reckon it was to do with sex or drink or debt – or all the above. Our bright-eyed verbalized romanticism has always been deeply shadowed by excess.

In 2005 Northumberland County Council ran a ‘Most Famous Northumbrians’ website competition and polled 30,000 people. This was the result:

George Stephenson. He was the man who put a Rocket up the pants of the transport system by inventing a viable track-based steam locomotive. His mother kept shouting, ‘Stop clocking that bliddykettle, Georgie, ye knaa it’ll nivvor bile.’ TRANSLATION: ‘Get out of the house and do some useful work, you waster.’

Grace Darling. Did the single sculls out of a harbour in a fierce storm and rescued people from a foundering ship.

Lord Armstrong. Famous arms and munitions maker with a factory along the old Scotswood road. Turned ‘Cragside’ at Rothbury into a turreted mansion sporting the latest electric and hydraulic gadgets. Typical saying: ‘What do yee lot wantwith a union? Stand on yer own pasties!’ TRANSLATION: ‘I’m alright, Jacks.’

Jane, Duchess of Northumberland. Smart lassie who persuaded the government to give her £14 million to create a massive natural jewel of a garden in the backyard of Alnwick Castle.

Jackie Milburn. The greatest centre forward Newcastle ever had. Scored six goals in a trial match having come from Ashington on the bus with his boots in a carrier bag.

Jack Charlton. Another Ashingtonian who was in England’s World Cup-winning team of 1966 and now hunts, shoots and fishes like a squire of old.