brown:
- What's for dinner?Ever since I can remember, `brown' was what we had on Sundays during the time between arriving home from church and going out again for Sunday school - and on rare occasions we had it at other times too. It was a while before I found out that it has another name, more widely known in the North of England: Pan'aggerty. Heat up a frying pan with some butter, then cover the bottom with sliced potatoes, then add sliced onions and cheese and more potatoes and carry on piling it up until you have enough for everyone, then plonk an inverted metal plate on top and cook it for about 40 minutes. We didn't have time for finishing it off under the grill, which seems to be in most modern recipes, but in any case, by the time it is finished the potatoes on the bottom of the pan have gone a rich brown colour (hence the name) and are the best part of the meal. However, I don't like onions, so this was not my favourite dish.
- Brown.
- Oh. :-(
As we children grew up and our meals slowly got bigger, and especially following the arrival of my youngest brother and his consequent demand for food, my parents found that we could no longer fit enough in the frying pan, so a tradition ended and another began: from then on, Sunday lunch was a casserole of potatoes, sausages and baked beans (much more to my taste) - which had the advantage of being able to be placed in the oven on a timer setting before we went out, so it was ready for us when we got back. A few of years ago I was amused to find that Heinz now markets this as a frozen ready-meal for one.
skue-bly: On a cloudy day, if you see any blue sky, you must not say the words `blue sky' because you will frighten it away again. Hence `I can see some skue bly,' which is much less likely to alarm it because it can't tell what you are talking about.
lyac (pronounced LIE-ak) = yeuch. Something my brother wrote when he was rather young, and we (the other two brothers), being cruel, deliberately mispronounced it and started using it.
mither (also spelled meither - pronounced with `my' as the first syllable): familiar to many Northern English speakers, it means to pester or irritate (a person) by talking on and on about something, particularly when complaining or asking for something.
Put wood in th'ole! = Shut the door!
Honourable mention goes to the word `collapsed' which has its usual meaning but is pronounced `COLL-upst' (another favourite of my granny).