What’s the weather like? Is it, perhaps, “flenched”? The old Scottish word for an outlook that promises to improve, but fails to do so. It is a term worth knowing, surely. But if you don’t hear it again, what are the chances of remembering it?
Accepting this linguistic challenge, campaigners are now taking action to breathe life back into such threatened dialect words. And the first step, they believe, is to encourage their use by popular podcasters and regional broadcasters.
An experimental scheme to boost endangered regional vocabulary will see examples “adopted” by prominent public voices. A group of leading podcasters has agreed to sponsor a word chosen from those identified as on the brink of extinction by the British Library. Regional radio broadcasters are also being urged to join participating podcast shows, which include The Lost Tapes of History and Black History Buff, whose presenters have agreed to “adopt” a favourite, whether or not they use it themselves.
“English, Welsh and Scottish surveys of word usage were done in the 20th century because people were worried that dialect terms and regional grammar were in decline,” said Jonnie Robinson, the British Library’s Lead Curator for Spoken English and an advisor on the project.
“In face to face conversation we all use a different language to our more formal vocabulary and, depending on where you grew up and whether you still live there, plenty of rarer words are understood today. They are part of group bonding and our sense of identity. A common example would be the rival vocabulary used in a semi-official context by schools for the correct footwear for games lessons. You might need plimsolls, pumps, or daps, depending on where you live.”
The drive to stop terms such as “scrammed-up”, a Devonian expression for being very cold, or “blatherskite”, a Durham word for gossip, from falling completely out of parlance is being run by Steady, an independent publishing website behind a network of British podcasts. In consultation with Robinson, the company has shortlisted 25 endangered words and phrases that have been cross-checked with contemporary regional newspapers and social media posts to confirm apparent obsolescence.
“Regional dialect words are particularly at risk as more of us now are not living where we were born,” said Kerrie Fuller, host of The Lost Tapes of History. “We have learned to use the language of our new tribe because that’s part of fitting in with those around us.” Fuller promises the third series of her podcast, out next year, will include an episode in which Samuel Johnson appoints a lexicographer to help him compile his famous early dictionary. “He will mention all 25 words, much to the bafflement of the new employee,” Fuller said. Perhaps he will react with a fit of “yewcums”, a near-forgotten term for hiccups in Shropshire.
Dr Tina Dingel, Steady’s German CEO, has loved the English language since her student days at St Andrews University, and she wants to preserve the range of the lexicon. Speaking from Berlin, Dingel said she looks up Merriam Webster’s daily word every morning and worries about the narrowing of language use due to computer algorithms.
“Of course, language changes naturally and we are not trying to stop that, but there is value to variety and a real pleasure to the phonetics. Our experiment is fuelled by the playfulness of words, especially in dire times,” she said. Noting the BBC’s planned cuts to regional radio broadcasting, Dingel added that she wants live news presenters to take up the challenge: “We wanted to see if we could game the system to provoke a discussion about an older form of popular spoken word.”
Her new platform enables British and European podcasters to charge for their content, but anyone who has an audio show, broadcast or podcast, is invited to talk about a chosen word, or just weave it into their speech. It will be considerably easier to work in “paddocked”, a Lancashire term for thirsty, than it will be to use “hoddy-dods”, once a common Essex term for snails.
“There is a nostalgic appeal to the words we associate with older generations,” said Robinson, “but I find that when anybody says a particular word is no longer used, someone else soon tells me they heard it just last week.” And Robinson believes it is possible to promote a provincial word up on to the main stage. He points to the Sheffield term for someone sulky, “mardy bum”, which appeared in DH Lawrence’s novels, and which is more widely recognised since it was used in an Arctic Monkeys hit song. Similar regional dialect phrases can be heard from across England, Wales and Scotland in the British Library’s sound archives.
