Home Views and Blogs Columnists Denis Kilcommons

Just watch your language!

Jan 4 2008 by Andrew Flynn, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

I FELT like Harry Potter trying to understand a lesson on magic and mysticism at Hogwarts.

Words I have never heard before were being bandied about.

Gizzened, swallacking and spetch.

What on earth do they mean, when they are at home?

I had been called to the bar (so to speak) and two or three of my learned friends were using them with the fluency of a blathered barrister from Barnsley.

“You’ve made them up,” I said. Sithee.

Nay, I was told. They’re proper words, handed down in dialect through the ages.

Gizzened means full of food as in “I’m right gizzened.”

Spetch is a plaster that is applied to a cut or graze and swallacking …?

As far as I could ascertain, this means the consumption of food or drink at a speed not commensurate with common sense.

Such as, “Don’t go swallacking your ale, we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

An entreaty that is more often than not, likely to fall upon deaf ears.

I have studied the English language all my life and it still surprises me with words I never knew existed.

Does anyone have any more?

Keep up to date with the news. Sign up for News Alerts E-Newsletters

Have your say on the latest news and sport in our Forums

Latest Denis Kilcommons Column

Denis Kilcommons

Denis Kilcommons: Bedroom pet hates

GOODNESS knows what the neighbours think. Read

Denis Kilcommons as the next Doctor . . ?

ACTOR Matt Smith has been named as the next Doctor Who, which is a bit of a choker. I was hoping maybe I would get a go myself. Read

Site Tools