Boris-noris and all that ....

And for your next question..............

My interest in the wonderful world of vocabulary was triggered when one day, working as a researcher for the first series of QI, the BBC programme hosted by Stephen Fry, I picked up a weighty Albanian dictionary to discover that they have no less than 27 words for eyebrow and the same number for different types of moustache. What a wonderful treasure trove of cultural examples I thought lay in the dictionaries of the world¹s languages. And so, in due course, I turned my attention to the amazing collection of glossaries of county dialects amassed with monastic zeal by the Victorian lexicographers. Just as in that era they collected the rocks, butterflies and ancient antiquities that now fill our museums, so predominantly between 1850 and 1880 they went around and collected examples of local dialect from every county in England and even some specific industrial communities such as the mining villages of Yorkshire and Durham.

I learnt much about the English character as expressed through its language. One of the more interesting aspects of English is the love of identifying action and sound through semi-onomatopoeic phrases, these jolly, affectionate and inventive expressions known in the linguistics community as Reduplicative Rhyming Compounds. The following examples make them self-explanatory: nibby-gibby (Cornish 1854) for touch and go; winky-pinky (Yorkshire) a nursery word for sleepy; hockerty-cockerty (Scottish 1742) with one leg on each shoulder; inchy-pinchy (Warwickshire) the boy¹s game of progressive leapfrog; fidge-fadge (Yorkshire) a motion between walking and trotting; boris-noris (Dorset) careless, reckless, happy-go-lucky; hozzy nozzy (Rutland) not quite drunk and most rustically: wiffle-waffle (Northamptonshire) to whet one¹s scythes together. Shropshire is the most exuberant of all with: aunty-praunty (Ellesmere) high-spirited, proud; bang-swang (Clee Hills) without thought or headlong; hobbety-hoy - a youth between boyhood and manhood; holus-bolus - impulsively; without deliberation; cobble-nobble - to rap on the head with the knuckles and perhaps most charmingly of all opple-scopple (Clun) to scramble for sweetmeats as children do.

The country¹s light-heated humour is also inventively demonstrated through rhyming slang and not just famously amongst the Cockneys of East London.Mostly it simply rhymes but sometimes the expressions take it further with the meaning carried across: borrow and beg (late 19C) an egg (the term enjoyed a fresh lease of life during the 2nd World War food-rationing period); give and take for cake (no cake can be eaten that has not been given - if only by a shopkeeper - and taken. Cake also means money - a cake of notes¹: that too needs to be given and taken); army and navy (early 20C) gravy (which was plentiful at meal times in both services) and, most touchingly, didn¹t ought (late 19C) port (wine) (based on the simpering of ladies who, when asked to¹ have another¹, replied that they didn¹t ought.

Another predilection is the use of euphemisms, a result of delicacy and manners: well suggested by the word continuations (1825) for trousers (since they continued a Victorian male¹s waistcoat in a direction too delicate to mention). Likewise the managing repetitive functions that we often try and pretend are not actually happening to us for our regular trips to the loo or restrooms where we go and empty the ashtrays (Manchester) or the teapot to make room for the next cup of tea (Buckinghamshire); see what time it is on the market clock (Bedfordshire); shake the dew from one¹s orchid (Cumbria); turn one¹s bike round (Suffolk); water the horses (Cheshire); wring out one¹s socks (Kent) or most effacing of all: see the vicar and book a seat for evensong (Isle of Wight). The final dying action of the body is also something that people prefer not to confront directly, as the following euphemisms for dying attest: stick one¹s spoon in the wall (1800s); go west (Cockney); go trumpet-cleaning (late 19C: the trumpeter being the angel Gabriel); drop one¹s leaf (c1820) or take the everlasting knock (1889) although perhaps the most poetic is to faint away in this vale of tears (Brompton Cemetery, London 1896).

Other topics of semi-taboo expression or means of reducing fate being tempted involve the evil of the Devil who is thus better known provincially as author of evil, black gentleman, fallen angel, old scratch, old split-foot and the noseless one. Just in the North-East of England he¹s been Clootie, Awd Horney, Scrat, Auld Nick and the Bad Man, while Yorkshire has had him as Dicky Devlin; Gloucestershire: Miffy; and Suffolk: Jack-a-Dells. And likewise the sinister or underhand notions (originating from the Latin word sinister for left hand) of left-handed people have been variously described as molly-dukered, corrie-fisted and skerry-handit (Scotland); car-handed, cack-handed and cowie-handed (North East): kay-fisted, kibbo, key-pawed, high-ammered, caggy-ont (Lancashire): cuddy-wifter (Northumbria) kay-neeaved or dolly-posh (Yorkshire); keggy (East Midlands) and Marlborough-handed (Wiltshire). Oldest of all is awk (1440), an old English word which means with or from the left hand¹ and thus the wrong way, backhanded, perverse or clumsy (hence awkward).

On more omnipresent themes, in scouring these dialects, I have unearthed all sorts of characters from the Midlands jaisy, a polite and effeminate man, the Yorkshire stridewallops, a tall and awkward woman or the dardledumdue (Norfolk 1893) a person without energy. The English language historically has never been short of slurs for the stupid and colourfully describes them as a clumperton (mid 16th century), a dull-pickle or a fopdoodle (late 17thcentury) or a goostrumnoodle (Cornish 1871).

The weather is another eternal feature and Sussex is rich in its local lingo. with port-boys - small low clouds in a clear sky; windogs - white clouds blown by the wind; eddenbite - a mass of cloud in the form of a loop; slatch - a brief respite or interval in the weather; swallocky - sultry weather; shucky - unsettled weather; truggy - dirty weather; egger-nogger - sleet and smither diddles - bright spots on either side of the sun.

On matters of climate Scotland however has the final say. Either there is more weather in the cold, wet places of the world or people have more time to think about and define it. The Scots may not have as many words for snow as the Inuits, but they have a fine vocabulary for their generally cool and damp climate. Dreich is their highly evocative word for a miserably wet day.Gentle rain or smirr might be falling, either in a dribble (drizzle) or a dreep (steady but light rainfall). Plowtery (showery) weather may shift to a gandiegow (squall), a pish-oot (complete downpour) or a thunder-plump (sudden rainstorm accompanied by thunder and lightning). Any of these are likely to make the average walker feel dowie (downhearted) as they push on through the slaister (liquid bog) and glaur (mire), even if they¹re not yet drookit (soaked to the skin). The track in front of them will probably be covered with dubs (puddles), as the neighbouring burn (stream) grows into a fast-flowing linn (torrent). For a precious few fair days in summer, there may even be a simmer cowt (heat haze), though the more austere will be relieved that the likelihood of discomfort remains high on account of the fierce-biting mudges (midges).

Adam Jacot de Boinod is a British author, most famous for his works about unusual words. He has written three books, the first two (The Meaning of Tingo and Toujours Tingo) looking at words that have no equivalent in the English language,and his latest book (The Wonder of Whiffling) looking at unusual words in English. After leaving QI, he began to investigate other languages, examining 280 dictionaries and 140 websites. This led to the creation of his first book in 2005, The Meaning of Tingo, a book featuring words which have no equivalent in the English language, "tingo" being a word from the Pascuense language of Easter Island meaning, "to borrow things from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left". He then wrote up a follow-up book entitled Toujours Tingo in 2007. In 2009, de Boinod wrote The Wonder of Whiffling, a book about unusual words in English, the word "whiffling" having several meanings, including, "one who examined candidates for degrees… an officer who cleared the way for a procession, as well as being the name of the man with the whip in Morris dancing."