19 May 2015

A bit of local vernacular


Ey up me duck!  The local media has been all aflutter about Dolly Parton being the latest celebrity (preceded by Angelina Jolie and Prince Harry) to use the East Midlands phrase and even the BBC has waded in with today's headline Do normal people really say 'ay up me duck?'.  To answer that question, yes they do!  A day rarely passes that I don't hear it said as a greeting at least once and it encompasses most age groups.  You do tend to hear 'eyup duck' and 'hiya duck' more often though and while I haven't adopted the usage of duck, hiya has most definitely entered my lexicon.

This video explains the phrase and origins quite nicely

Also notice the pronunciation of Derby--it's 'Darby' here rather than the 'er' we usually say in the states. I can't exactly say anything since Arkansas is 'Ar-kan-saw' rather than Ar-Kansas. However I still reserve the right to shake my head over Belvoir ending up as beaver!  



4 comments:

TWBrit said...

I think the "Duck" bit is more local to this area. I find the Ay-up more Yorkshire, where they may say "Ay-up chuck" instead.
That said, my home town Sheffield in Yorkshire, a common greeting is "Alright?" but in dialect, which sounds like "Rate?" or sometimes "Reet?"

Unknown said...

That's why I wrote 'ey up' rather than the ay up that the BBC used...the writer actually got that a bit wrong, it's more of an 'eh' in the Midlands rather than the aye further north.

Unknown said...

I'm noticing a distinct lack of what's up bitches in the British vernacular. :p

Unknown said...

Ha! Shannon, there is a fair bit of that as well but it doesn't make for a PG themed blog post ;-)