Nah then! Can tha speak the language o' God's Own Country reight proper?

To celebrate Yorkshire Day on August 1 we've assembled this selection of wonderful Yorkshire phrases.

We think they encapsulate the Yorkshire character: no-nonsense, a bit dour on the surface but friendly inside, pithy and dryly humorous.

READ MORE: Can you pass the Yorkshire Citizenship Test? Try our quiz

Yorkshire dialect varies as you move from the most southerly part of South Yorkshire to the far reaches of North Yorkshire or from Scarborough on the eastern seaboard to Huddersfield on the western extremity.

But Yorkshire dialect has some characteristics we all recognise.

Those Lancastrians could learn a thing or two from our language. Actually, their dialect has quite a lot in common with ours but (shhhh!) don't tell anyone.

Anyway, git thi tongue around these champion expressions.

Has tha said...

  • Yev smittled me! (When someone yawns and everyone in the room then yawns too)
  • Yorkshire men have short arms, and deep pockets
  • Dry thi eyes, funeral face!
  • There's none so blind as them won't see
  • Well I'll go t'foot or our stairs
  • Tea won't make it's sen

  • It's two coats warmer here!
  • Tha can allus tell a Yorkshire man, but tha can't tell 'im much!
  • Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred, strong in t'arm, weak in t'head!

  • Do nowt fer nowt 'cept fer thissen
  • Put wood in t'oil!
  • Ya great wazzock!


  • Fair t'middlin'
  • Where there's muck, there's brass
  • Tha's nowt but a daft 'a'peth
  • Off t'werk
  • Ee by gum!
  • Bloomin' ummer!
  • It's muck or nettles (the Yorkshire version of caught between a rock and a hard place)
  • Our lass
  • It's slartin' down
  • Frame thi sen

  • Tha knows
  • Ovver yonder

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