Evolution of the English Language

Fascinating, and special thanks to VampireQueen.

I have lived in a few different parts of England. Partly my job, partly my personality, I picked up words and ways of speaking and absorbed them.
For most of my adult life we lived in a very diverse town, I picked up lots of West Indian and Asian words and phrases. Now I've come home, to a rather out-of-the way part of England, but speech has changed! With older people I talk the way I did as a child, but younger ones (especially my own kids) find it hilarious!
Even as a child though, we were near a USAF base, had friends & neighbours who were from Belgium (WW1) Italy & Poland (WW2) so even my native 'dialect' included a few odd phrases from elsewhere, including 'ach y fi'from my friend's Welsh mum!
I love the way language evolves.

Given the number of Irish on Merseyside, it could possibly be a reason why I came across it. I honestly don't know, but I know it was (and is) part of my vocabulary.

I love dialects too. Skidaddle was in common use when I was growing up and mam used to threaten to snickersneeze us when we were cheeky. My dad used to pronounce knife as k-nif-a.

Skedaddle may have older roots. It's first use in print is the American Civil War
Skedaddle” first appeared in written accounts of battles in that war, used to mean “to retreat quickly; to flee” (“As soon as the rebs saw our red breeches … coming through the woods they skedaddled,” 1862). In military use there were definite overtones of cowardice under fire in “skedaddle,” but as the word quickly percolated into civilian usage, it came to mean simply “to leave quickly” or “to run away.”

There are a number of theories about the origin of “skedaddle,” but no definite answer to the puzzle. The relatively sudden appearance of “skedaddle” as a fully-formed word, with no known ancestors in English, tends to argue for its importation from another language. There are theories that attempt to trace “skedaddle” to various Swedish or Danish words but fail on lack of evidence. It is more probable that “skedaddle” is rooted in the Irish word “sgedadol,” meaning “scattered,” or the Scots word “”skiddle,” meaning “to spill or scatter.” Given the Scots-Irish heritage of many of the states central to the Civil War, these both seem like reasonable bets to me.
Fascinating isn't it!

Decades ago Yorkshire women were using the expression "I fell wrong" meaning that they pregnant. It caught my newly demobbed father out when he was locum tenens for a Yorkshire GP in 1947.

I suspect falling pregnant was likewise originally a dialect form, perhaps never used by the well-educated or the snobbish, but in common use somewhere in the English speaking world.

I sometimes still use "skedaddle" (no idea of correct spelling) and have no direct link with Yorkshire.

My mother was born and bred on Merseyside, as was I, and my father came from Surrey, so I have no idea where I picked it up from.

According to etymological dictionaries, it's a 19th century word of American origin.

My son lives in Tynemouth and it was D. of Northumberland land. The original street names all link to the Percy family. The Grand Hotel there is said to have been built at first as a summer house for the Duchess. They still own the right of way through a gated street on the front. It is amazing how much power they had.

re the Duke of N -
One of my uncles was a tenant farmer for the Duke until he died about 4 years ago aged 99. His oldest son, my cousin , still has the farm. In Otterburn.
We used to spend our summer holidays there and help with the hay making.
re language etc - my Uncle would speak to us in our normal accent, but when mixing with the local shepherds etc change to broad Northumbrian. He once took me with him into Alnwick to the Duke's office for some official business and on the way in we met the Duke, Probably the father of the present Duke. Then Uncle changed to proper posh mode.
I kept shtum . Another unforgettable childhood memory.

Trisher , the Duke is still referred to in Alnwick and area as very much an active presence with regards to what land he controls.

Lovely word Alexa - bletherskite

My Scottish family said skedaddle and also called me a wee bletherskite.

It is funny how you remember things Alexa I hadn't thought about skedaddle for years. It was also something my dad said when he didn't want us interfering or messing with something he was doing. Being told to "Skeddadle" was common. I suppose that is one thing which education has lost for us. Proper English was very important as far as my mum was concerned. She didn't want us having strong Yorkshire accents like our country cousins.
I got interested in the extent of the Percy family estates. At one point they owned most of the land from Beverley in the south Malton to the West up to the Scottish border, effectively what was Northumbria

The home schooling work, which my 8 year old granddaughter is being set this week, is to use adverbial clauses, so schools do still teach these sort of things. However, if people don't continue to practise using them throughout life, they get forgotten.

Trisher, what you say, above, is very significant. My great read at present is about the ancient kingdoms of Britain, and their place names and languages.

Thanks for the link to the Northumbrian language Alexa. I thought it interesting that she regards Northumbrian as a seperate language and yet many of the words she uses do not necesarily have the same meaning in other parts of the North. "Bait" for example, which she says is a meal, is used in Newcastle and mining villages to mean the lunch a workman takes with him. I was raised in Yorkshire and "Skeddadlin" meant specifically running off or away from something.
Children were warned "Don't you go skeddadlin".
I think the terms for counting sheep are so interesting. And the Cumbrian accent (is it also a language?) is different to Northumbrian en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbrian_dialect

Well, people may use legal secretaries in your area of expertise eg industrial safety, but certainly other professionals may not.

Fennel alexa gagajo I grew up in Northumberland too and from time to time have been know to still say “I divn’t knaa “.
At school the deputy head had the guttural R and I particularly remember enjoying how he would dismiss assemble by telling us “No rrrruning in the corrridors”

Callistemon in regard to your post @23:46 yesterday, I believe you misunderstand the role of a legal secretary when court documents are being compiled.

It is the role of the expert witness to address the scientific, medical, technical or any other issue that may require the judgment of the court. A legal secretaries main role in that process is offten to research where other court judgments may bring influence to the case at hand.

By example to the above, where there has been a workplace accident it is the role of the expert witness to examine all matters that may have caused the incident. In that, the expert will search out any risk assessments that have been compiled that are relevant to the incident, and then oversee whether those assessments were sufficient in composition to cover the work practise involved. That professional would then look at the safe working practices employed in any procedure and if any PPEs etc that are supplied are adequate to the process, and whether all the forgoing are sufficient in total for the task that is carried out.

The role of the legal secretary in the above is, as stated, to research where there may have been a similar workplace accident or incident that have been brought before the courts. The secretary then will seek out the judgments in those cases, and then examine as to whether those verdicts are relevant to the case under examination.

The legal secretary then draws both the expert witness report and his or her own findings into single or multiple documentations that are then added to "the bundle" to be placed before the court.

While carrying out all the above it is also the job of the legal secretary to proofread all reports etc and ensure that every comma, period and apostrophe are exactly where they should be.

Of course, close collaboration is required between the professional expert and the legal secretary throughout all stages of the above.

If they are experts in their subject they wouldn't use a legal secretary who may not be versed in, for example, scientific, medical, or other technical areas of expertise.

Callistemon in regard to your above post, in the case of an expert witness that very much is the case. However, such expert representatives have legal secretaries etc to proofread their documents, where with typical witnesses the court would not require such exemplary written documentation.

Some evidence may be acceptable in a court of law but the evidence of an expert witness in a criminal case needs to be precise and properly worded.

The evolution of the English language has been a good development especially for those who have not done well in education.

The courts in Britain (especially the industrial courts) for a substantial period of time now have accepted that provided that any document presented to them is understandable to "any person of average intellect" then that document is acceptable as evidence to the court.

By example, the above has been an enormous development for people who have been unfairly dismissed from their employment and who are not members of a trade union. Therefore such persons can find themselves with no legal representation in an industrial court.

The above persons can now make up their own bundle for presentation to the court in the knowledge that statements they may write and those of witnesses who may support them do not have to be word perfect, but just understandable.

I have often seen messaging text used in such documents (by example, U used in place of the word YOU) and in such circumstances that not even being referred to by the tribunal chairman. Indeed, I have witnessed a tribunal chairman "rip into" a solicitor who attempted to belittle a person who had written a statement in such a text messaging manner in the industrial court (industrial tribunal).

Therfore, I firmly believe that the development of the English language into what has now become a less formal format is for the vast majority of people something which has brought far more equality into their everyday lives.

Fennel and Alexa I live in Tyneside and have worked in Northumberland off and on for 15 years. When I first moved up here, it took me 3 months to be able to effortlessly understand my students.

Who would imagine that ‘Haway wi wu’ or ‘Ah divnt knaa’ were English?

I frequently heave out whatever Shakespeare I’ve been told to teach (it’s rare I get to select myself) to the groans of students.

By the time we’re finished, they’ve enjoyed it.

Text speak has more or less been and gone. It was addressed 15 or so years ago in a piece of coursework in English but was got rid of as the phenomena waned once 140 character text limits became a thing of the past. It’s left remnants such as LOL.

Thanks Alexa that made me smile .
It's a different language!