Can't touch this

[venta]

I just used (on Skype) the phrase "as subtle as a ten pound mell".

Then I thought. Hmm. Mell. Is that a real word? The guy I was talking to didn't query it. I suspect this means he's used to me and ignores every other sentence. Anyway.

I did a bit of light searching for the phrase, and came up with nothing. Wikipedia doesn't know what a mell is.

Dammit.

A bit of hammer-browsing later, I was wondering if (as a kid) I'd misheard "maul hammer". Which is a genuine thing and everything.

I was just about to post here and ask if anyone else used the word "mell" like that when I thought of googling just the phrase "mell hammer" (rather than the whole "subtle as a ...").

And there, galloping to the rescue, is the Northumbrian Language Society. Scroll down that page and you'll find (point 4 on their list) a little table of some selected Northumbrian words.

A mell, it says, is a hammer. Well now. I felt somewhat better.

And then somewhat worse when I read the rest, and thought what? You're telling me gadgy and dunsh and and hacky aren't just normal words? This is the story of my life...

And is using "tab" for "cigarette" really limited to Northumberland? I only learned last week that boody wasn't a real word when someone looked at me funny. This is also the story of my life.

Comments

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I'm unfamiliar with the rest of the words, but tab for cigarette would seem normal to me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

All the rest of the words? Even hacky?!

(Despite confusion about bulls upaheight in the comments, hacky is an adjective. Your mam would tell you off for coming with your clothes all hacky...)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Indeed. She might be given to mention that you looked like the Wreck of the Hesperus, especially if your heid was all tatty like a hen's arse on a windy day.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What the hell is the Wreck of the Hesperus, anyway? Other than, obviously, a thing you look like on a bad morning.

Well, there's a thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Hesperus). I wonder whether I was being likened to the ship, the drowned daughter, or the horrified fisherman.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Poem by Longfellow. No idea why it's common parlance in the North East (and apparently Ireland too, from previous investigations).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

And Liverpool -- cf George Harrison's song so named.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I *did* follow Karen's follow-up, though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

No need to apologise! I was just surprised. Hacky is one of those words that I find it impossible to conceive anyone doesn't know/use!

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Seconded, I've heard that and haven't spent any time in Northumbria.

[chrisvenus]

I'm with this. I didn't even have an inkling of most of the others and probably wouldn't have known most of them (except Pollis just looks like its the word Police with a different pronunciation transcribed to paper). Oh, and bonny looks scottish to me but I may have got it...