Grimsby not in Yorkshire but in the `soft south'

From the archive, first published Thursday 27th Oct 2005.

I would like to come to the rescue of Sue Pycroft who confessed in a very interesting article in the October 20 issue of the Gazette & Herald that she didn't know the Yorkshire word for goat. Shame on her. What do they teach in the schools these days?

Being an expatriate Yorkshireman, exiled to Chippenham for not owning a whippet, I always have my Collins English-Yorkshire phrasebook at hand, just in case I am confronted by a language barrier as I go about my daily business of drinking cider and crunching carrots.

Unfortunately my book does not contain a translation for goat and, come to think of it, this is not surprising as, in all my days in England's largest county, I never once saw such a beast.

This is not to say that the place is not without its ruminants, as large tracts of its countryside are awash with sheep.

These creatures, I believe, are a more hardy relative of the goat, just as Yorkshire folk are more hardy relatives of the humans that populate places where a warmer climate is enjoyed, and where Sue's linguistic expertise is more extensive, such as Wiltshire, Wales or the Mediterranean countries.

Readers will be pleased to know that my research has revealed that Yorkshire has more than one word for a sheep.

A male sheep is a tup and a female, prior to giving birth, is a gimmer. I've no idea what you'd call a female sheep after it's given birth. Mum, perhaps.

What I can't understand though is why Sue's hint at a possible visit to Grimsby should make her feel the need to educate herself in the Yorkshire dialect.

Only a complete wazzock (a Yorkshire word meaning fool) would fail to recognise that Grimsby is in Lincolnshire and, but for a brief political relocation to South Humberside, always has been.

The fact that its name contains the word `grim' might suggest that it is a gritty northern town that ought to be in Yorkshire but, as it is of a lower latitude than Doncaster, I can confirm that this plants it well and truly in the `Soft South' where the word for goat is goat.

T Mullan

Chippenham

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