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02nd Jun 2016

19 words and phrases only true northerners will understand

Stop mithering me, you quilt.

Richard Beech

If it sounds like a different language, it’s probably because it is. Who needs Queen’s English when you’ve got northern English?

Here are 19 words and phrases everyone from the north will know…
1

Meaning: Food.

Usage: Just nipping the chippy for some scran?

2

Meaning: Moody person

Usage: Cheer up buggerlugs, scran’s on the way.

3

Meaning: To get angry.

Usage: You’d better clean the dishes, Dave, or mum will see her arse when she gets in.

4

Meaning: Socks (rhyming slang with Salford Docks)

Usage: Put on your wolly Salfords, son, it’s Baltic out today.

5

Meaning: Close the door.

Usage: Put wood int’ ‘ole, love, it’s blowing a gale.

6

Meaning: Lazy person (slummocking can also be used as a verb).

Usage: Get your Salfords on, you slummock.

7

Meaning: Shoes.

Usage: Nice trabs, mate, they must be new?

8

Meaning: To trouble, bother or irritate someone (also ‘oin’).

Usage: She’s been mithering me to go t’pictures to see that new X-Men flick.

9

Meaning: You idiot.

Usage: Stop mithering me, you quilt.

10

Meaning: Hospital.

Usage: Steve’s down the Ozzy, he got in a scrap down’t Lion’s Head apparently.

11

Meaning: The stairs.

Usage: Take the dancers, they’re quicker than the lift.

12

Meaning: Teeth (rhyming slang with Newton Heath).

Usage: Stop mouthing off you gobshite or I’ll knock your Newtons out.

13

Meaning: Toilet.

Usage: I was on the netty all night, that scran was rancid.

14

Meaning: Don’t bother.

Usage: If you want my advice, he’s a right quilt. Deaf it.

15

Meaning: Alleyway.

Usage: There’s no netty round here, but you can go down’t ginnel.

16

Meaning: Fixed (in broad terms).

Usage: He looked rough yesterday, but he’s in fine fettle today.

17

Meaning: The Police (reference to a character from Top Cat).

Usage: Hide down’t ginnel, the dibble are on the way.

18

Meaning: Someone who has made an error.

Usage: You pillock, now the dibble will be all over you.

19

(Full phrase: Where there’s muck, there’s brass).

Meaning: Good money can be made from dirty jobs.

Usage: Cleaning out the festival shithouses might be rotten graft, but where there’s muck, there’s brass.