Telling someone off - 'chow'
jAmES Royal-Lawson
my girlfriend [who is Swedish]. Being a Yorkshireman I tend to use quite
a few colloquial words and phrases, but usually I can find them in at
least one of the dictionaries at my disposal...
'Chow' has beaten me. I may well be spelling it completely wrong, but I've
asked a few friends and everyone knows what it means but not everyone
can agree on how to spell it.
'Chow' is a verb - to chow at someone is to tell them off. "I got chowed at
at school" would be quite a commonly heard phrase, or "Me Mam chowed at me"
would be another... "Don't chow at me"
Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of this word,
or any information about its history or 'official' definition if such a
thing exists...?
jAmES
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Old Curmudgeon
jAmES Royal-Lawson gaily trilled
>For a little while now I've been trying to explain the word
>'chow' to my girlfriend [who is Swedish]. Being a
>Yorkshireman I tend to use quite a few colloquial words and
>phrases, but usually I can find them in at least one of the
>dictionaries at my disposal...
>
>'Chow' has beaten me. I may well be spelling it completely
>wrong, but I've asked a few friends and everyone knows what
>it means but not everyone can agree on how to spell it.
>
>'Chow' is a verb - to chow at someone is to tell them off. "I
>got chowed at at school" would be quite a commonly heard
>phrase, or "Me Mam chowed at me" would be another... "Don't
>chow at me"
>
>Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of
>this word, or any information about its history or 'official'
>definition if such a thing exists...?
>
>jAmES
Cassell's Dictionary of Slang:
chow v. [19c] to chatter, to prattle [chow n. ; mainly
theatrical use]
--
Roy Archer
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m.midorikawa
jAmES Royal-Lawson wrote:
> For a little while now I've been trying to explain the word 'chow'
> to my girlfriend [who is Swedish]. Being a Yorkshireman I tend to
> use quite a few colloquial words and phrases, but usually I can
> find them in at least one of the dictionaries at my disposal...
>
>
> Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of this
> word, or any information about its history or 'official' definition
> if such a thing exists...?
>
Eric Partridge wrote in A Dictionary of Slang ...:
chow ... --2. Talk; 'cheek' : theatrical, from ca. 1870; obs. ....
chow, v. To talk much; grumble: theatrical ; from ca. 1870. ...
chow, have a plenty of. To be very talkative : theatrical ; from 1875.
m.midorikawa
Phil C.
"m.midorikawa" <mas...@kun.ne.jp> wrote in message
news:8ld5ja$bt9$1...@nwms2.odn.ne.jp...
I wonder if "chow" is linked to "chew" or "chew out" meaning to
rebuke? This seems to be an American usage and is included in
Webster`s as an official meaning of "chew".
-- .
Phil C.
________________________________________
philandwoody*at*meem*dot*freeserve*dot*co*dot*uk
Brian L Dominic
Royal-Lawson) had a frenetic dose of key-bashing and wrote:
>'Chow' has beaten me. I may well be spelling it completely wrong, but I've
>asked a few friends and everyone knows what it means but not everyone
>can agree on how to spell it.
>
>Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of this word,
>or any information about its history or 'official' definition if such a
>thing exists...?
>
Why not try uk.local.yorkshire?
Brian L Dominic
NB Rumpus
Web Sites:
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jAmES Royal-Lawson
> On Sat, 22 Jul 2000 13:36:11 +0100, ch...@ccl4.org (jAmES
> Royal-Lawson) had a frenetic dose of key-bashing and wrote:
>
>
> >'Chow' has beaten me. I may well be spelling it completely wrong, but I've
> >asked a few friends and everyone knows what it means but not everyone
> >can agree on how to spell it.
> >
> >Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of this word,
> >or any information about its history or 'official' definition if such a
> >thing exists...?
> >
> Why not try uk.local.yorkshire?
Well, foremost I thought uk.culture.languare.english would be the best
place to ask - given the quality of posts in the group and also because
I wasn't certain it was a Yorkshire word... Secondly, I'm not taking
uk.local.yorkshire in my newsfeed [or rather, I wasn't before today,
I've added and I've also posted this followup to both groups]
jAmES
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John Hall
jAmES Royal-Lawson <ch...@ccl4.org> writes:
[re the meaning of "chow"]
>Well, foremost I thought uk.culture.languare.english would be the best
>place to ask - given the quality of posts in the group and also because
>I wasn't certain it was a Yorkshire word...
Fair enough, but I think it *might* be a Yorkshire word. At any rate,
I'd never heard of it before and I'm a southerner. That's far from
conclusive, of course.
--
John Hall
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick
themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Molly
jAmES Royal-Lawson (jAmES Royal-Lawson <ch...@ccl4.org>) wrote
>nbru...@lineone.net (Brian L Dominic) wrote:
>
>> Why not try uk.local.yorkshire?
>
>Well, foremost I thought uk.culture.languare.english would be the best
>place to ask - given the quality of posts in the group and also because
>I wasn't certain it was a Yorkshire word... Secondly, I'm not taking
>uk.local.yorkshire in my newsfeed [or rather, I wasn't before today,
>I've added and I've also posted this followup to both groups]
>
You don't actually have to add uly to your subscribed groups now that
the thread is cross-posted - it is only if the discussion moved to uly
alone that you might miss out on it.
*faces north* Ey-up there - anyone know about chow?
--
Molly (remove -nospam to email me)
Visit http://www.thehungersite.com for a totally free and simple way
to donate food to the hungry. (Go on, try it!)
Old Curmudgeon
gaily trilled
>In article <20000723....@ginkier.ccl4.org>,
> jAmES Royal-Lawson <ch...@ccl4.org> writes:
>[re the meaning of "chow"]
>>Well, foremost I thought uk.culture.languare.english would
>>be the best place to ask - given the quality of posts in the
>>group and also because I wasn't certain it was a Yorkshire
>>word...
>
>Fair enough, but I think it *might* be a Yorkshire word. At
>any rate, I'd never heard of it before and I'm a southerner.
>That's far from conclusive, of course.
The answer's already been given in ucle.
martinp
"Molly" <mo...@mockfords-nospam.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ADmGV6Av...@clara.net...
> You don't actually have to add uly to your subscribed groups now that
> the thread is cross-posted - it is only if the discussion moved to uly
> alone that you might miss out on it.
>
> *faces north* Ey-up there - anyone know about chow?
faces east - it's a Chinese dog - yummy by all accounts, especially when
served with Yorkshire pudding (OT)
Richard Head
Molly wrote in message ...
>*faces north* Ey-up there - anyone know about chow?
Chu Chin?
Sean Emmott
Molly wrote in message ...
<<snip>>
>*faces north* Ey-up there - anyone know about chow?
I lived in the West Riding until 3 or 4 years ago when I moved to Hull. It
was only then that i heard "Chow" used to mean tell off as in "an' 'ee
started chowin' at me!"
Now there are a few words used in Hull that I've not come across elsewhere:
mafted = hot / warm. "I am mafted", "the weather is mafting"
Nithered = Cold. "I am nithered", "the weather is nithering"
and everyone calls children "bairns", something that [I think] is more
common in the north east than other parts of Yorkshire.
I wondered if this might be due to some norse influence, and if "chow" is
drawn from the same roots, but I'm probably wrong :-)
--
Sean
Take the mick out to reply
Ian Dinsdale
<sean...@emmott.karoo.co.uk> wrote:
>I lived in the West Riding until 3 or 4 years ago when I moved to Hull. It
>was only then that i heard "Chow" used to mean tell off as in "an' 'ee
>started chowin' at me!"
>
>
>I wondered if this might be due to some norse influence, and if "chow" is
>drawn from the same roots, but I'm probably wrong :-)
Wasn't the expression "chewing someone off" fairly commonplace in
society generally years ago?
Isn't "chowing" just a local variant of this?
Cheers
Ian D
jAmES Royal-Lawson
> I lived in the West Riding until 3 or 4 years ago when I moved to Hull. It
> was only then that i heard "Chow" used to mean tell off as in "an' 'ee
> started chowin' at me!"
So potentially it could well be another Hullensian word.
> Now there are a few words used in Hull that I've not come across elsewhere:
> mafted = hot / warm. "I am mafted", "the weather is mafting"
> Nithered = Cold. "I am nithered", "the weather is nithering"
> and everyone calls children "bairns", something that [I think] is more
> common in the north east than other parts of Yorkshire.
I didn't realise how many words were very local to Hull until I started
seeing someone who spoke english as a 2nd language, but not Hullensian.
> I wondered if this might be due to some norse influence, and if "chow" is
> drawn from the same roots, but I'm probably wrong :-)
Its been quite a revelation for me spending a lot of time in Sweden
and realising the similarities in language. I've probably learnt more
about my own language over the last few year that ever [knowingly] before!
Just as some examples... Barn is child in swedish, its pronounced very
similar to how Hull people say "bairns". Snow in a Hull accent is *exactly*
the same as you prounounce snö [yep, swedish for Snow].
Infact, the letter Ö [an O with two dots above it incase some newsreaders
don't like the high ascii] in the Swedish alphabet is prounounced exactly
the same as a Hull O - which does actually leave me high and dry when i'm
trying to prounounce an English O to a Sweden as it doesn't exist in my
vocal alphabet!
Godis is prounounced Goodies, which across a lot of Yorkshire is a name
for Sweets... 'Gö hem' is very close indeed to 'go home'... and so on.
jAmES
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]![ So if I touch you _there_ you go all wibbley?
Mike Swift
<sean...@emmott.karoo.co.uk> writes
>I lived in the West Riding until 3 or 4 years ago when I moved to Hull. It
>was only then that i heard "Chow" used to mean tell off as in "an' 'ee
>started chowin' at me!"
>
>Now there are a few words used in Hull that I've not come across elsewhere:
>mafted = hot / warm. "I am mafted", "the weather is mafting"
>Nithered = Cold. "I am nithered", "the weather is nithering"
>and everyone calls children "bairns", something that [I think] is more
>common in the north east than other parts of Yorkshire.
>
Nithered is a Paul Hudson (Yorkshire weather man) word, not heard of it
before he used it. Round Hudds. The word is 'Clemmed', which can also
mean hungry.
Bairns I know, maybe a Cas. word, certainly my mum and gran used it,
mum=Cas, gran=Gildersome, then Cas.
>I wondered if this might be due to some norse influence, and if "chow" is
>drawn from the same roots, but I'm probably wrong :-)
If it's Yorkshire it's likely Norse.
Mike
--
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Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
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Mike Swift
<ch...@ccl4.org> writes
>Just as some examples... Barn is child in swedish, its pronounced very
>similar to how Hull people say "bairns". Snow in a Hull accent is *exactly*
>the same as you prounounce snö [yep, swedish for Snow].
And laik=play is the same in Norway, ie laik football, laiking from
work=laid off.
Sean Emmott
Mike Swift wrote in message ...
>In article <8lkllm$h2u$1...@supernews.com>, Sean Emmott
><sean...@emmott.karoo.co.uk> writes
>>I lived in the West Riding until 3 or 4 years ago when I moved to Hull.
It
>>was only then that i heard "Chow" used to mean tell off as in "an' 'ee
>>started chowin' at me!"
>>
>Not heard of that in Hudds.
>
>>Now there are a few words used in Hull that I've not come across
elsewhere:
>>mafted = hot / warm. "I am mafted", "the weather is mafting"
>>Nithered = Cold. "I am nithered", "the weather is nithering"
>>and everyone calls children "bairns", something that [I think] is more
>>common in the north east than other parts of Yorkshire.
>>
>Nithered is a Paul Hudson (Yorkshire weather man) word, not heard of it
>before he used it. Round Hudds. The word is 'Clemmed', which can also
>mean hungry.
I heard "clemmed" back in the West Riding before I moved East. Is Paul
Hudson from the East Riding?
>Bairns I know, maybe a Cas. word, certainly my mum and gran used it,
>mum=Cas, gran=Gildersome, then Cas.
>
>>I wondered if this might be due to some norse influence, and if "chow" is
>>drawn from the same roots, but I'm probably wrong :-)
>
>If it's Yorkshire it's likely Norse.
LOL! Yeah, probably right :-) Have you been listening to Melvyn Bragg's R4
series about the development of spoken English [I assume it's required
listening for u.c.l.e!]? It moves a bit swiftlly [no pun intended] for my
nightime brain to assimilate everything, but I was struck by one comment
that a cumbrian dialect speaker visited Iceland and was able to make himself
understodd quite clearly by using dialect rather than English.
It's a great series and I'm glad they repeated it in an evening slot rather
than its original afternoon slot.
Mike Swift
<sean...@emmott.karoo.co.uk> writes
>I heard "clemmed" back in the West Riding before I moved East. Is Paul
>Hudson from the East Riding?
>
I've heard starved used for cold round here.
>>If it's Yorkshire it's likely Norse.
>
>
>LOL! Yeah, probably right :-) Have you been listening to Melvyn Bragg's R4
>series about the development of spoken English [I assume it's required
>listening for u.c.l.e!]? It moves a bit swiftlly [no pun intended] for my
>nightime brain to assimilate everything, but I was struck by one comment
>that a cumbrian dialect speaker visited Iceland and was able to make himself
>understodd quite clearly by using dialect rather than English.
>
I didn't catch it all but I liked the bit where the lass was in a
restaurant in Norway. She was talking in a thick Cumbrian twang that
would be considered common in England, the locals could understand a lot
of what she said and thought her a bit posh.
Wes Riding
Mike Swift <mike....@yeton.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:QRXAWAAm...@yeton.demon.co.uk...
> I didn't catch it all but I liked the bit where the lass was in a
> restaurant in Norway. She was talking in a thick Cumbrian twang that
> would be considered common in England, the locals could understand a lot
> of what she said and thought her a bit posh.
>
seemed to think he was royalty. Though, there are parts of Barnsley...
Martin Pickering {UK}
ch...@ccl4.org (jAmES Royal-Lawson) wrote:
>'Chow' is a verb - to chow at someone is to tell them off. "I got chowed at
>at school" would be quite a commonly heard phrase, or "Me Mam chowed at me"
>would be another... "Don't chow at me"
>
>Anyone offer any insight into either the correct spelling of this word,
>or any information about its history or 'official' definition if such a
>thing exists...?
I was born in North Yorkshire - Middlesbrough to be precise.
"Chow" simply meant "chew" and was used most noticeably in the dales to the
south but NOT in the town where it was considered "common".
Other interesting dialect words from the Middlesbrough area that were in
common use in my youth (born 1951) were:
Clemmy - meaning stone.
Gennel - meaning passageway between houses
(We used to "hoy a clemmy up the gennel", bouncing it from wall to wall).
Hoy - meaning throw. Common in Newcastle.
Bairn - meaning child - was not used by everyone. It seemed to be more
commonly used by people further north - especially Scotland - but also in
the Darlington area and county Durham.
Sneck - meaning "nose" but often used to refer to a gate catch of the
hockey stick shape.
There were/are many specific words which are not generally used in other
parts of the country. For instance "grate" is the grid that prevents you
from falling down a roadside drain. Remember that the "a" is flat or
uninflected and the "t" is often unpronounced so it sounds like "grae'".
The dialect around Middlesbrough varied enormously and it was fairly easy
to distinguish speakers from Middlesbrough, Billingham, Sunderland,
Darlington.
The "southern" North Yorkshire accents were quite different but equally
varied and you needed to travel no further south than Stokesley to hear the
typical farming dialect of the dales. Even the place names sounded weird.
Take, for example, the tiny village of Chop Gate (pronounced "Chapyat") or
"Little Ayton" (pronounced "Canyatton" -a trunkation of "Canny Atton").
Stokesley itself was pronounced something like "Stouslah" and the nearby
village of "Urra" was pronounced "Orra".
If I had to describe the distinguishing features of these dialects I would
think that the Middlesbrough accent has noticeably "flat" vowel sounds with
"no" sounding like "noah" rather than "nyew". "T" often becomes an almost
silent glottal stop.
Because of the flat vowel sounds and resultant lack of intonation,
Middlesbrough people are often considered to have monotonous, mumbling
voices. The dales accent is more interesting with more inflexion and less
relevance to the actual spelling! With the main topic of conversation being
farming and weather, many of the words used would have little meaning to
"townies".
I seem to have let my typing finger run wild!
Hope I haven't bored you.
Martin Pickering
http://www.netcentral.co.uk/satcure