Stephen wrote: 07 Aug 2020, 06:52
I thought my geordie mate had had a stroke.
I put my hands on his shoulders looked at his face, and i asked him to smirk.
So he got out his Rothmans.
Not heard that one before. However, I guess your pal must come from somewhere between Springwell and Sunderland. (Lads like me brought up nearer to Geordie ground zero, would almost certainly have have said ‘smoak’).
I was thinking about this yesterday and saddened at the homogenisation of truly local accents ( not just on Tyneside but nationally). Estuary Geordie favoured by local tv presenters and C -list Geordie celebrities leaves me cold. As does Trans-At Geordie (spoken through a permanent wide grin) favoured by local radio presenters.
Probably the most difficult version of regional Geordie I ever encountered was in the late ‘60s was on a visit to Newbiggin near Ashington. ‘A’s were replaced by soft ‘e’s and other vowels were substituted into speech in an apparently random fashion.
Unfortunately the most beautiful of the North -East of England accents, Northumbrian, with its softly rolling ‘r’s has all but disappeared.
I saw in a newspaper article that RP is still the favoured accent for broadcasting and that Geordie is No.9, just below Glaswegian. Least favoured being Cornish.
I still do get a fix of regional accent as ‘Wor lass’ (I’m safe, she never reads my posts) hails from Aberdeen where The Doric is still going strong and ‘Fit fit fits fit fit?’* makes perfect sense.
Off now for my morning buttery- or is it a rowie?
*as heard in a shoe shop as a lady tried on slippers of a style where right and left was not Immediately apparent. The statement translates as ‘which slipper fits onto which foot?’