SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

The strangest phrase I've heard for a wee was "I'm just going to turn me bike round!"

You need to be careful here, there are a lot of good local words in use in the many areas of Leeds. Ginnel, laikin and braying are good examples. Chip oil is not dialect or local usage or slang it's just someone who cannot be bothered to say chip hole.So whilst many good examples have been given and I'm sure many more are to come let's go for the local words and phrases that have come down over the years from the times of the norsemen - al sithee.

OKMissen - myself.

My Grandad was from Hunslet, he used the word liak, if someone said do you know say Tommy Jackson, if he didn't know him he would respond "did he laik for Hunslet"also he had a little diity which I think went like this;- Hear all see all say nowt, Eat all sup all pay nowt, If tha wants owt dooin do it for thi sen.                        

ajboo wrote: Ok here goes,Fettlin............. Fix somethingPut wood int'oil...............Shut that dooroff cumden....... someone not from these parts, and unless you have lived in these parts for at least 150yrs you will never be a local. I dont reakon I'll make it to 50 yeard old, let alone 150 years old!

cnosni wrote: Well this is a funny old thing this thread,i read some of the posts and think "Yeah, i said that" and the others i look at and think,no never.Yes i went to the original Brownhill on Harehills Lane,though it was in the 70s.Still i know for a fact,in MY personal experience that i never heard Laik in North Leeds,perhaps then there is also a generational aspect to be taken into account for the use of this word,if your father went to Brownhill then it is clearly a number of generations before i did.With so much change going on will it soon be a case that what we are discussing will also be a thing of the past,perhaps this need to be preserved somehow. You're right about preservation , " laiking " obviously disappearedbetween the 1940s and early '50s when I too went to Brownhill and the 1970s when you were there .

,For them that mention 'laik', 'lark' lake' (going out/playing). . . .in Beeston it's pronounced 'lek'. . 'R u lekkin out' . . 'Swot' is 'clever/bright'. .'plank' is 'thick''chore' is to 'steal'. ('chorey' is a stolen car).'chuddy' is chewing gum. . .'its chocka' and'its like Briggate' means 'it is really busy'. . ,     Post    

MsJ2uk wrote: ,For them that mention 'laik', 'lark' lake' (going out/playing). . . .in Beeston it's pronounced 'lek'. . 'R u lekkin out' . . 'Swot' is 'clever/bright'. .'plank' is 'thick''chore' is to 'steal'. ('chorey' is a stolen car).'chuddy' is chewing gum. . .'its chocka' and'its like Briggate' means 'it is really busy'. . ,     Post     I'm from East Leeds & my other half is form West Leeds and both of us always said lecking (for playing out) rather than laik.

PJ wrote: You need to be careful here, there are a lot of good local words in use in the many areas of Leeds. Ginnel, laikin and braying are good examples. Chip oil is not dialect or local usage or slang it's just someone who cannot be bothered to say chip hole.So whilst many good examples have been given and I'm sure many more are to come let's go for the local words and phrases that have come down over the years from the times of the norsemen - al sithee. Sorry I have to disagree. While it might have come from someone being lazy and recently introduced the widespread use of "oil" makes it local dialect, all reet . The three pubs on Churwell Hill, I am told, were widely known as top oil, middle oil and bottom oil. This didn't include the Woodman near the white rose centre which like the white rose was/is in Churwell. I am also told that the woodman was very popular because the licensing hours for Churwell used to differ from Leeds and the relatively nearby Tommy Wass (probably 50's, 60's and maybe into 70's)

geoffb wrote: My Grandad was from Hunslet, he used the word liak, if someone said do you know say Tommy Jackson, if he didn't know him he would respond "did he laik for Hunslet"also he had a little diity which I think went like this;- Hear all see all say nowt, Eat all sup all pay nowt, If tha wants owt dooin do it for thi sen.                         The four alls.see all, hear all ,say nowt. a yorkshiremans advice to his son.eat all, drink all ,pay nowt and if ever tha does owt for nowt allus do it for thisen.