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What are they doing to my language

Grumpy Old Lemons Like You
AsleepInYorkshire
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What are they doing to my language

#522738

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » August 15th, 2022, 11:03 pm

Over the last two weeks we've been supporting my good ladies Mum & Dad. We've had to make the odd trip to the local tip ... indeed we've now got our own loyalty card :lol:

Yesterday one of the employees working at the tip called out to my 15 year old daughter, "the hard plastics go over there darling".

He was genuinely being helpful. I was his "buddy" and the fifty something year old lady emptying her car skip, was a luv. He was being helpful and he wasn't crossing any boundaries of taste, dignity or respect. He was being himself and he was earning a living.

Many would find the way he addressed them as disrespectful. I couldn't. I found room for him in a place that I could tolerate. I hasten to add, I could have informed him that my 15 year old daughter wasn't his "darling". I didn't want to. His tone, body language and timing were all synonymous with wanting to help.

The Oxford Dictionary is often updated to include new words. Now we are having to "cancel" words, regardless of their intent and intonation.

How long before I cannot call my mate, mate? How long before I cannot call my buddy, buddy? How long before I cannot say sweet FA because someone with way too much time on their hands, wants to cancel my interaction with the world?

What can we say? What do you say?

AiY(D)

servodude
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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522744

Postby servodude » August 16th, 2022, 12:34 am

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Over the last two weeks we've been supporting my good ladies Mum & Dad. We've had to make the odd trip to the local tip ... indeed we've now got our own loyalty card :lol:

Yesterday one of the employees working at the tip called out to my 15 year old daughter, "the hard plastics go over there darling".

He was genuinely being helpful. I was his "buddy" and the fifty something year old lady emptying her car skip, was a luv. He was being helpful and he wasn't crossing any boundaries of taste, dignity or respect. He was being himself and he was earning a living.

Many would find the way he addressed them as disrespectful. I couldn't. I found room for him in a place that I could tolerate. I hasten to add, I could have informed him that my 15 year old daughter wasn't his "darling". I didn't want to. His tone, body language and timing were all synonymous with wanting to help.

The Oxford Dictionary is often updated to include new words. Now we are having to "cancel" words, regardless of their intent and intonation.

How long before I cannot call my mate, mate? How long before I cannot call my buddy, buddy? How long before I cannot say sweet FA because someone with way too much time on their hands, wants to cancel my interaction with the world?

What can we say? What do you say?

AiY(D)


Wait.... it's the Bitter lemons board and you're here to report a jovial interaction at a skip that resulted in <checks again> nothing? as a premise for talking about cancelling words? What has "gotten" in to you? :D

Time for that Tim Minchin video on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw ?

Anyways for all but very few things in our lexicon most part the words ain't the problem - much like guns its what you do with them - it's in the context

You got that?.... buddy?!

Everyone gets that "what did they just say" thing now and again - and you take a moment to re-parse it in your head and you work out what was "meant" and normally it's all fine and sometimes the Fokkers are flying Messerschmits :shock:

You're not being constrained but you can expect some funny glances and surprised remarks if you pull that Yorshire "love" stuff in Glasgow (as happened to my 20st Sikh mate when we sent him to get a round at the Horseshoe)

;)

- sd

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522746

Postby Mike4 » August 16th, 2022, 12:54 am

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Over the last two weeks we've been supporting my good ladies Mum & Dad. We've had to make the odd trip to the local tip ...


Although you and I know that's what it is, I've been given some serious lectures for calling it such. Apparently it's not a "tip", it's a "Recycling Centre" and as you observe, one needs a membership card in order to prove one pays Council Tax in that particular area in order to be entitled to use it.

And also, one needs to turn up in the correct type of vehicle i.e. a car (not a van) with registration number, as I'm reliably informed by friends that people arriving on foot or bicycle are refused entry and made to go away with their outrageous illegitimate rubbish. I mean recycling.

And despite all the token sorting of one's rubbish into different categories of skip, I still reckon they just empty them all into one big pile round the back as soon as the gates are closed.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522748

Postby servodude » August 16th, 2022, 1:04 am

Mike4 wrote:
AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Over the last two weeks we've been supporting my good ladies Mum & Dad. We've had to make the odd trip to the local tip ...


Although you and I know that's what it is, I've been given some serious lectures for calling it such. Apparently it's not a "tip", it's a "Recycling Centre" and as you observe, one needs a membership card in order to prove one pays Council Tax in that particular area in order to be entitled to use it.

And also, one needs to turn up in the correct type of vehicle i.e. a car (not a van) with registration number, as I'm reliably informed by friends that people arriving on foot or bicycle are refused entry and made to go away with their outrageous illegitimate rubbish. I mean recycling.



I'd forgotten all about that stuff Mike

They tried to turn us away from our local tip when clearing out the house for leaving Embra (the van had been hired from near my folks on the other side of the country 'cos we were staying there for a few weeks before flying out)

Fortunately I had my "folder" with all my papers and stuff with me so we used that and a lot of sweary words and appeals to the audience of cars that was growing behind us to convince them that letting us drop off the few things we had was probably the best solution

-sd

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522779

Postby Bminusrob » August 16th, 2022, 9:29 am

Methinks the OP is out of order. Coming from where he does, where "love" is a standard usage for males or females, he needs to get a grip of local usage. Down here is Devon, nearly Cornwall, "lover" is standard usage, and "darling" is not uncommon. It comes as a surprise first time around, but everyone locally is quite happy with the usage.

Does he also want to remove the usage of "Eh up"? I am sure that years ago, my teenage boys would have been very offended at "Eh, Up", as they slept to midday.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522780

Postby pje16 » August 16th, 2022, 9:33 am

Someone I know (a married female) often refers to me as "love"
I just take that as her being friendly
I call some people mate, it just a habit, I certainly don' mean to offend by that
and if someone was I wouldn't do it again to them

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522943

Postby stevensfo » August 16th, 2022, 7:20 pm

Mike4 wrote:
AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Over the last two weeks we've been supporting my good ladies Mum & Dad. We've had to make the odd trip to the local tip ...


Although you and I know that's what it is, I've been given some serious lectures for calling it such. Apparently it's not a "tip", it's a "Recycling Centre" and as you observe, one needs a membership card in order to prove one pays Council Tax in that particular area in order to be entitled to use it.

And also, one needs to turn up in the correct type of vehicle i.e. a car (not a van) with registration number, as I'm reliably informed by friends that people arriving on foot or bicycle are refused entry and made to go away with their outrageous illegitimate rubbish. I mean recycling.

And despite all the token sorting of one's rubbish into different categories of skip, I still reckon they just empty them all into one big pile round the back as soon as the gates are closed.


It's a tip!!

Ask one of them where the rubbish goes. How it's recycled etc. They don't have a ****** clue!

Your last sentence at least mirrors what people say about the way the rubbish guys at airports collect the already sorted-out rubbish.

...and all the articles about all that gets taken to Turkey and India.

Anyone got a youtube link to how our waste gets recycled?

Steve

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#522981

Postby GrahamPlatt » August 16th, 2022, 10:44 pm

From memory, so neither accurate nor complete, but from t’other side o’t’ Pennines:

She gave me a smile
From the top of the pile
And I had to methink
why I’d come for a while

But you have to admit
When push comes to shove
Shopkeepers ‘round here
Call everyone “love”.

(Hovis Presley, RIP)

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523066

Postby bungeejumper » August 17th, 2022, 11:40 am

In North Somerset it would be moi duck. (Animals? Really?) In 1970s Brum, where I used to teach, it would have been our kid, which would have opened up a whole lot of potential misunderstandings. :?

I can't wait to see what the PC language brigade make of the Black Country! :lol:

BJ

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523081

Postby Arborbridge » August 17th, 2022, 12:13 pm

I'm just back from Cornwall and Devon where it's quite usual to be addressed as "my lovely". It's endemic and long may it stay that way.

God help us if we get arrested, cancel or spat at - or whatever - for a simple good natured human gesture such as calling somone "luv". I do it very occasionally, and no one is going to stop me.

Arb.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523088

Postby Rhyd6 » August 17th, 2022, 12:26 pm

Does anyone know how the chap who called a couple of waitresses "pet" has got on? Last I heard he'd been informed he would be prosecuted.

R6

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523120

Postby bungeejumper » August 17th, 2022, 1:22 pm

Slightly different, but there's another dual-purpose word going round at the moment.

Liz Truss says there's a shameful lack of graft in Britain. Which ought to come as a surprise to anyone who'd been part of Boris's cabinet, where it seemed to be a number one policy objective. :(

BJ

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523191

Postby swill453 » August 17th, 2022, 5:14 pm

Rhyd6 wrote:Does anyone know how the chap who called a couple of waitresses "pet" has got on? Last I heard he'd been informed he would be prosecuted.

I'm sure there's more to it than that. The (carefully worded) reports say he's being prosecuted for threatening or abusive behaviour after calling them "pet".

Scott.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523192

Postby scotview » August 17th, 2022, 5:22 pm

Up here our term of endearment is usually "Fit like min" or "Fit like ma quine"

Now you see my difficulty writing in the Queen's English.
Last edited by scotview on August 17th, 2022, 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523195

Postby kempiejon » August 17th, 2022, 5:27 pm

swill453 wrote:
Rhyd6 wrote:Does anyone know how the chap who called a couple of waitresses "pet" has got on? Last I heard he'd been informed he would be prosecuted.

I'm sure there's more to it than that. The (carefully worded) reports say he's being prosecuted for threatening or abusive behaviour after calling them "pet".

Scott.

I heard
A former world boxing champion from the North East is to attempt to have sexual assault charges against him dismissed by a court in London.

Glenn McCrory is accused of sexually assaulting three females at an event before the Anthony Joshua v Oleksandr Usyk title fight at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on September 25, last year.


https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... t-charges/

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Ewe Sex

#523510

Postby bungeejumper » August 18th, 2022, 3:47 pm

It seems there's no getting away from it. The other day, our landline received one of those read-out-loud text messages that somebody has accidentally misdirected to a landline instead of a mobile. And where the robot reader has done its feeble best to interpret it....

This particular message was from some of our best friends, and it rambled on for a while about what a brilliant holiday they were having, and so on and so forth. But it was in the sign-off that the (female) robot voice stopped us in our tracks.

"Best from both of Ewe Sex", it intoned. Or maybe it meant You Sex, which I presume must be a video channel that I haven't found yet?

And the moral? If you're going to end a sign-off with a handful of XXXs, don't expect the stone-cold heart of the machine to know what you're on about. :?

BJ

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523534

Postby stewamax » August 18th, 2022, 5:13 pm

bungeejumper wrote:In North Somerset it would be moi duck. (Animals? Really?)

When I worked near Glasgow, it would be 'hen'.
And when I was younger, men would be 'old cock' - nothing ageist or penile, just friendly.

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523823

Postby Rhyd6 » August 19th, 2022, 5:57 pm

We've had a couple from Essex move into a nearby village and their neighbour brought them along to our community cafe. They seem to be settling in well and are a great couple, he's joined the local bows club and is learning crown green having previously played carpet bowls. He was explaining the difference to this morning when I noticed he was left handed "didn't know you were a cuddy wifter" I remarked. He looked at me and said is that Welsh for left handed or something rude. No doubt someone here will know what it means. My cousin married a wonderful chap from this particular area of England, so hopefully he wasn't pulling our leg and it really is something rude.

R6

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523878

Postby WrenChasen » August 19th, 2022, 11:22 pm

Rhyd6 wrote:We've had a couple from Essex move into a nearby village and their neighbour brought them along to our community cafe. They seem to be settling in well and are a great couple, he's joined the local bows club and is learning crown green having previously played carpet bowls. He was explaining the difference to this morning when I noticed he was left handed "didn't know you were a cuddy wifter" I remarked. He looked at me and said is that Welsh for left handed or something rude. No doubt someone here will know what it means. My cousin married a wonderful chap from this particular area of England, so hopefully he wasn't pulling our leg and it really is something rude.


Good ol' Google:

https://www.lexico.com/definition/cuddy_wifter

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Re: What are they doing to my language

#523947

Postby bungeejumper » August 20th, 2022, 10:35 am

I'm impressed that this phrase is said to have originated in both London and the North East of England, but apparently nowhere in between. How might that have happened?

Certainly, the kids I taught in 1970s Birmingham would have understood a whifter to be the sort of flatulent individual who you wouldn't want to be standing next to in a lift. (See also "trump".) More commonly, though, they'd complain about a waaaaaaaaaft permeating between the desks in the classroom. Ain't etymology fascinating?

BJ


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