Briticisms from Coronation Street???
 

Coronation Street, the long-running U.K. popular soap, is my favorite TV show and one reason i enjoy watching it is the constant use of British phrases i am not familiar with - and it's fun to track down the meanings as the context on the show of the word or phrase is not always clear.

So in this thread i'll just parrot wome phrases i hear and give the context and guess at the meanings - hopefull those more in the Anglo-isms know will clarify.

From last night's show (about 15 months delayed on my local CBC outlet from the ITV ones in Britain)

"She's like DOSSING DOWN all the time" - talking about someone who is a slut i guess.

"The baby has been really GRIZZLY" - meaning crying, etc all night, i guess

with the money i could have paid my LECCY, or electric bill i guess

'it used to be sad little SAPPERS knew their place - again talking about a slutty woman, i guess.

"I don't suppose there's any tea in that pot" - meaning, i suppose that it is not worth persuing

Any clarifications on these phrases in real-life use?

thanks

Are you making another "case" here (to paraphrase one of your Fodorite admirers)???

'Dossing' means slacking, being lazy, not putting much effort in. It does not mean being a slut!

'it used to be sad little SAPPERS knew their place - again talking about a slutty woman, i guess.

? Slappers?

>>"She's like DOSSING DOWN all the time" - talking about someone who is a slut i guess.<<

Dossing is doing nothing important/wasting time/being lazy, as in 'what did you do this afternoon?' 'Not much, just dossing around'.

I would guess 'Dossing down' meant sleeping/being lazy.

>>"The baby has been really GRIZZLY"<<
Grizzling is that half moany crying thing that babies do - not full on wailing, just a bit grumpy.

>>"with the money i could have paid my LECCY"<<
Leccy just means electricity ('switch the leccy on luv', 'Oh no, the leccy has blown', in this context, yes, 'pay the electricity bill).

>>'it used to be sad little SAPPERS knew their place - again talking about a slutty woman, i guess.<<
Not sure on this one, you're probably right though.

>>"I don't suppose there's any tea in that pot" - meaning, i suppose that it is not worth persuing<<
More like "I'd like a cup of tea, please make me one'

I think you miss heard Slappers as Sappers.

Slappers are indeed slutty women.

Sadly the Corrie dictionary seems to be down or I'd have added the link to it for you me duck ;).

Married to an Oldhamite I don't need Corrie to hear these expressions :)

BTW Sappers are the combat engineers (members of the Royal Engineers) in (amongst others) the British army.

"I don't suppose there's any tea in that pot"

Depends entirely on the context, but might well be a not very diplomatic way of changing the subject, or implying that the other party ought to be minding their own business (and getting on with making the tea instead).

both are right it must have been Slappers

<Depends entirely on the context, but might well be a not very diplomatic way of changing the subject, or implying that the other party ought to be minding their own business (and getting on with making the tea instead)>

- yes that was the exact context on the 'i don't suppose there's any tea in that pot' on yesterday's show.

Or another soap opera convention would see it used to mean "The sultry slapper in the Rovers has ditched me for a man with a bigger car, so I'm back........."

DOSSING - either messing around - dole dosser- someoene who doesn't work or try to find work but claims benefits instead.

Dossing is also sleeping either rough or not in a bedroom.

eg "I don't have a spare bed, but you can doss down on the sofa"

GRIZZLY - also grissling - not crying, but when a child is tired but not gone to sleep, they are a bit out of sorts, not happy. Can be applied to a child who is not well. Can also be a pplied to an adult who wakes up bad tempered.

LECCY - electricity

SAPPERS - probably slappers, a tart, a strumpet, a slut

I'd also call that fake crying older toddlers do 'grizzling'.

>>I'd also call that fake crying older toddlers do 'grizzling'.<<

Boredom. I once stopped a child doing that by just clicking my tongue.

"The tea in the pot" could be along the "not the brightest spanner in the tool box" thing, i.e. stupid

thanks all - it's fun for me to learn the nuances of these in actual use

YESTERDAY'S BRITICISMS

1- "Oh he's doing his pits" even though he is semi-conscious (a baby)

pits? i assume his dirty work?

2- Imagine Uncle Liam 'taking the mick out of the poncey"

I assume nothing here - no freaking idea of what that means

3- "he's three sheets to the wind"

well drunk as a skunk and i have only heard this from Americans from the East Coast so we have that phrase too though many Americans would not know it

4- "I'm skivvy over there - if you are skivving i am too"

again not much of a guess?

>>1- "Oh he's doing his pits" even though he is semi-conscious (a baby)

pits? i assume his dirty work?<<
No idea! It must be Northern...

>>2- Imagine Uncle Liam 'taking the mick out of the poncey"

I assume nothing here - no freaking idea of what that means<<

'Taking the mick' means taking the piss, pulling someone's leg. Can have two interpretations depending on context:
1) He's have a joke at the expense of someone
2) He's taking advantage of someone

Poncey is usually an adjective, meaning pseudo-posh, stuck up, affected, full of 'airs and graces' - 'those shoes look so poncey'. 'Ponce' would be the noun equivalent.

>>3- "he's three sheets to the wind"

well drunk as a skunk and i have only heard this from Americans from the East Coast so we have that phrase too though many Americans would not know it<<

Yep, just really drunk.

>>4- "I'm skivvy over there - if you are skivving i am too"<<

A skivvy is a downtrodden domestic worker, usually a cleaner. 'Who do you think I am, your skivvy??'

1. I've no idea. I think you may have misheard something.

2. "taking the mick" (I thought that was American) - either making fun of or otherwise not taking someone seriously (as in ripping them off in some way). "Poncy" is the adjective for "ponce", which originally meant someone living off someone else's (usually immoral) earnings, but now just means someone extravagant, show-offy and usually leeching on someone else.

3. "three sheets to the wind" is not uncommon over here, though I think probably more older-generation now

4. I assume you mean skiving (pronounced "skyving") = slacking off, playing hookey.

A skivvy (also rather old-fashioned now, I suspect) means a downtrodden dogsbody, originally the maid-of-all-work (especially the messiest household jobs).

*sigh*

Do I have to everything?

http://www.slang-dictionary.org/Engl...ng-Dictionary/
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/

It could well be that with a few gallons of Dulex i could well have misunderstood #1 - but i had the captions on since i need it sometimes to translate the Midlands dialect and i find that the automatic translation often makes a mistake in spelling.

oh crikey yes, they're famous for absurdities if they're not using the actual script. BTW it's not the Midlands (that was Crossroads, which really would have confused you*), but the North West (Salford, more or less).

This is not that great a comic exaggeration of what made Crossroads famous:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc_UuLkzd8

BTW: It's not North West. No such dialect

The three great North West dialects - Manky, Woollyback and proper English as spoken in the centre of civilisation (well that's how Allen Ginsberg described Liverpool) - are just about as different as Altaic languages are from Indo-European.

And Salford (the default Coronation St dialect) is to Manky as Spanish is to Romance.

"Poncy" usually means show-offy: I disagree strongly that it carries a connotation of leeching. It often carries a connotation of effeminacy, though.

flanneruk

Just 3 dialects? Burnley is different to Blackburn, and as for Bacup - well the less said the better.

I first heard the term 'Doss' in Burnley in 1965, when during the summer holidays (Burnley Fair) my friends took me to what they called a Doss House (that was a near miss!). I always assumed the term derived from Department of Social Security House. Anyone illegitimately on Social Security benefits was therefore known as a Dosser - 'good for nothing and idle'.

Nope, doss goes back to 18th century.

and yesterday's show

"you know the little green frog off the telly"

no idea of any green frog from UK TV? Some ad?

Our Darryl's "bogged off"

i guess just left suddenly without anouncement?

she is "as tenacious as a romper hound"

romper hound? some hunting dog gone wild with the scent?

"We can top and tail" - talking about a man and a woman sleeping in the same bed

well obvious i guess - head with toe and toe with head

(Or as a friend always says when two males much share a bed in a camper - "butt to butt and nut to nut but never butt to nut"

Stevelyon

Bloody hell - Burnley fair - does that still exist?

For those of you in more civilised places Burnely Fair is (was) the first 2 weeks in July. Everyone went on holiday then.

Some shops closed for the fortnight, factories and schools closed. Basically the place would be a ghost town. Well more of a ghost town than usual.

It was the wierdest thing to experience, an entire town on holiday.

Little green frog off the telly = Kermit!
Bogged off- just upped sticks and off Darryl's gone.
'Romper hound' never came across one of those but there was a good pub called 'The Romper' (not too far from Manchester, my home town)
'Top and tail' can be used to mean sleeping positions as you suggest but my Mum used it to mean a quick clean without pulling out every piece of furniture and I have also heard it meaning quick wash i.e. face and bum (as in small children)

Sash, Indeed it does exist.... the fair that is, although Ive heard they've swapped the chats for chappatis .... but Burnley Fair is not a patch on Goose Fair (Nottingham in October) and which gives rise the saying 'Goose Fair Weather' meaning foggy (October is prime time for fog).

Bellini - The Romper at Marple Bridge, now that's what I call a pub (excepting the rough pubs in Salford where you are lucky to leave with a broken leg).

Time was, it was quite common for all the factories in Lancashire towns to shut at the same time for a "wakes week" holiday.

Surely the tenacious lady would have been likened to a bloodhound?

Burnley - is this the town i took a train thru in the 80s and the train seemed to circle the town from elevated tracks in a semi-circle and i thought i saw visions of Hell - smoke-bleching industries on their last legs - i was really appalled at such grit - does this sound like the Burnely i remember or were it another town?

Yes that's Burnley - but its much more worse than that. Its gone downhill since the 80s ... as a result of losing its "smoke belching industries"... its even worse than Bacup.

Ah, but Bacup has the Coconutters.

Yes that's Burnley - but its much more worse than that>

wow - sincerely i thought i was going back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution - Burnley was probably the most inudstrialized city i ever saw.... until i traveled thru East Germany just after the wall fell - even worse.

PalenQ

I disagree - by the 80's there was no industry left, but it was still grim.

Chats - bloody hell another blast from the past.

PatrickLondon

wakes weeks take place (took place) in Yorkshire. And factories closing for cleaning is one thing. Shutting down hospital wards and closing shops long after the factories have gone always seemed senseless to me.

The Romper at Marple Bridge- yep, I used to go there in my younger days! Ashton Wakes was the middle two weeks in August when practically the whole town stopped work, shops closed and you met most of your neighbours in Blackpool :))

Last night's episode

"oh just flog it"

guess means just forget it

"there's no bog roll in the toilet again"

??? bog roll - TP?

someone wanted a shirt color of "electric blue"

assumed leccy here means really bright?

"it's time for a wee toast"

Well this was an Irish bloke speaking - wee must mean tiny but if they are Irish there is no such thing as a 'wee' toast IME

"innit"- isn't it

PalenQ wrote: "Well this was an Irish bloke speaking - wee must mean tiny but if they are Irish there is no such thing as a 'wee' toast IME"

But irony is pretty well second nature with us.

flog it = sell it (especially for a cheap price)

bog roll = toilet paper

You're correct on the others.