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Gransnet today....Just my opinion.

(558 Posts)
merlotgran Sun 27-Nov-16 11:43:46

Don't want to completely hi-jack the 'Christmas in four words' thread so I've started this one. Feel free to shoot me down. I don't do flouncing. grin

Some time ago, the 'What does Gransnet mean to you?'thread developed into a 'Bring back jingl' campaign. Despite this, it has become clear that we are not entitled to an explanation as to why she is still shackled to the naughty step

We inhabit a goldfish bowl which must be respectable to the outside world looking in on an ageing cyber community. Old people are only expected to be curmudgeonly in books and TV nonsense. Manufactured threads about growing old disgracefully are perfectly acceptable so long as they fit the approved template which has been set by people who are NOT as old as we are.

All well and good until a situation causes a ding-dong. We must be ever mindful that Gransnet is a business relying on advertising revenue. Swearing is tolerated on Mumsnet because it's acceptable in the young and feisty whereas the 'one foot in the grave' club have to leave all that behind and remember our opinions don't really count any more.

The political threads are argumentative because that's politics. You can't put a straight jacket on a well informed if opiniated point of view which is as it should be. Folk who hide behind the sofa when all hell breaks loose should know better than to get caught in the cross-fire.

So....We're allowed to moan about Brexit, complain about our aches and pains and chat about telly dramas/adverts/music. We willingly offer support to complete strangers even though it often comes back to bite us. I'm not the only one who can spot a set-up. Above all, we must remain bland!

There were two members who railed against this. One is sadly no longer with us and the other has been kicked into touch for being too outspoken. Unsurprisingly, they rarely saw eye to eye but that's LIFE!

I'm off to put the joint in the oven. I might even start a thread about it. hmm

Only joking!

Charleygirl Sat 03-Dec-16 15:00:44

Katek I come from Fife originally and I was also used to hearing the word "mirr". A word I hate and it was used by my Fifer grandmother was baffies for slippers and also calling me hen.

Elegran Sat 03-Dec-16 15:18:28

gilly At Moray House in about 1960, our music teacher was a great advocate of teaching primary children local folk songs instead of poncy English tunes. He got his class of future teachers singing things like "The craw kill't the pussy, oh" from which I can add that the past of "greet" is "grat" - The mammy cat sat doon and grat.

I think he must have been a fan of Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, because he had us singing "Brochan Lom, Tana Lom" too (next one on Youtube after "The craw kill't the pussy, oh")

Jane10 Sat 03-Dec-16 15:35:51

Oh I love my baffies, even though I am hirpling about these days. I usually keep them ben the lobby press. wink

Jane10 Sat 03-Dec-16 15:36:29

PS we'd see a smirr of rain.

Katek Sat 03-Dec-16 15:49:52

Baffies are known as 'carpets' here!

rosesarered Sat 03-Dec-16 16:51:55

Carpet slippers

winifred01 Sat 03-Dec-16 16:55:08

Mardy, yes! What about being described as a nesh carrot?

Christinefrance Sat 03-Dec-16 17:01:38

Yes I remember fair clemmed and siding the table.I think it's an age thing and a lot of these words are not in general usage now. That said I haven't lived in Yorkshire for a long time now.
Also in some areas breakfast is pronounced brake fast which is nearer the meaning I suppose. I have family in West Yorkshire and they say ' we are going in for us tea ' etc.
It's all very interesting how things differ in fairly small areas.

thatbags Sat 03-Dec-16 17:08:28

A Yorkshire great uncle of mine used to say "Reach to" when the food had been brought in at tea-time. It didn't matter if you wanted to eat cake first either, though my great aunt made the bread and butter so dainty (sliced and buttered a finger roll as if it were a large loaf) that it was just as attractive as cake.

In Oxford I worked with a woman who said brakefast. I explained the breaking fast thing to Minibags the other day. Can't remember how it came up but she loved it and wondered why she hadn't spotted that herself.

Maggiemaybe Sat 03-Dec-16 17:22:35

My DH is Yorkshire born and bred, so I know most of the old Yorkshire sayings above. He used to say brakefast, but I think my influence has rubbed off and now its brekkfast all the way. He does still use side, frame and mash. One word I do like is laiking, for playing. I suppose it's related to larking?

trisher Sun 04-Dec-16 11:49:48

Brake fast is pure Yorkshire and includes the long "a" sound- a word with a short "a' sound is watter (water)
My mother worked desperately to rid me of any Yorkshire accent and illustrated that one with the rhyme
"What's the matter?
Pigs in watter?
Did anyone else have the term Scotch Mist used for lost things which my mother found when I couldn't "What's this? Scotch Mist?"
Scotch Mist was also a term for light drizzle and fog.

Grannyknot Sun 04-Dec-16 11:55:47

I don't know where my neighbour (in London) is originally from, but when I walk past and he is working outside, he always says "How do?" I love that. I want to reply "Like this" and do a little dance smile

Christinefrance Sun 04-Dec-16 12:03:44

Scotch mist is an expression I remember as well, used as you say trisher.
My parents sent me to elocution classes so I would not grow up with a Northern accent which they thought was not 'ladylike '
I do get annoyed when people equate a northern accent with someone not being very intelligent. I took issue with the BBC over this as Tim Wonnacott on Bargain Hunt was often very patronising in this way.

Gagagran Sun 04-Dec-16 12:15:25

I think "How do" is Yorkshire too Gk - my Dad used to say it to anyone he met outside, if he knew them.

Another one is "get out of me road" meaning "move!"

Greyduster Sun 04-Dec-16 12:42:09

"How do" is a Yorkshire expression and I was surprised to hear that we say "brakefast". I"vet never heard that. All my life it has been "brekkfast".

Greyduster Sun 04-Dec-16 12:46:01

Further to the subject of "watter", there is an area here called The Wicker - known as "T'Wicker, weer't watter runs o'er't weir"! Spit the bones out of that one!

Jane10 Sun 04-Dec-16 12:46:10

Some people up here in Scotland also say 'brakefast'. My DD came home from primary school one day and said 'my teacher says brakefast instead of breakfast.' I asked why they were talking about that meal and she told me ' he said my jotter was a right dog's brakefast!'
I've never let her forget it.grin

kittylester Sun 04-Dec-16 13:19:36

My Mum who was born in Lancashire and lived in Stoke, Derby and Leicester, called it brakefast but she probably thought it was posher to say it that way. grin

harrigran Sun 04-Dec-16 13:31:21

We used Scotch mist here in the very north of England but it is a long time since I have heard it used.

Maggiemaybe Sun 04-Dec-16 13:55:11

My mother used to say "Scotch mist or Irish fog".

thatbags Sun 04-Dec-16 13:58:26

Talking about where we were born in my Lancashire secondary school class one day, I put on my best Yorkshire accent to tell my Aberdonian form mistress that "Ah coom frae Pu'sey whier watter flows up t'ill and dooks flt backards to kape mook art o' their een".

She said, in her lovely Aberdeen accent: "Wd you kindly speak Englesh". The first E of English was pronounced like the e in met.

thatbags Sun 04-Dec-16 13:58:47

*fly

Charleygirl Sun 04-Dec-16 16:11:19

Jane do you remember the word glaikit? Not sure of the spelling now. I also remember Scotch mist used in the context described. I also was familiar with the word press as in cupboard.

Jane10 Sun 04-Dec-16 16:28:12

Ooh yes. I'd say glaikit (not very bright) in, if not daily then at least weekly, use! There's also dippit (a bit daft) mauket(dirty). Not to mention jacket (rough looking esp female). None of those being exactly complimentary!!

Jane10 Sun 04-Dec-16 16:30:17

Not jacket!- hacket. Phone won't believe I mean to type that and keeps trying to change it. Obviously these Scots words are not in its vocabulary. They are now!