Dialects - Potteries - Stoke-on-Trent

The Potteries area of North Staffordshire has it's own particular dialect... as portrayed by
"May un mar lady" ……

May un mar lady was created © by Dave Follows and appears in The Sentinel newspaper. Reproduced by permission of Dave Fallows

"Hey up youth….. Ows thar lady?"

"Lend me that pound I saw you with earlier"	"For pities sake, are you short again? I told you to cut down" "I have cut down"	"I want it to toss for which one of us has the egg for dinner"

you're on your own for the others…..!

Duck Transactions & their impact on Stoke-on-Trent.

On June the sixteenth 1960. a train spotter and a hedgehog trainer came down from Crewe to an address in Fenton in response to an advert in The Evening Sentinel for a 1953 Ford Prefect that was going for the bargain price of twenty pounds. After doing the deal, they went for some chips and happened upon a unique Potteries conversation.

"Woss want duck?"
"Giz thray sixes an' a fish duck."
"Sowt an' vinegar duck'?"
"No duck... Macks um goo cowd."

The transaction involved a quantity of fish and chips for the sum of two shillings and fourpence.

Standing agog with amazement, the intrepid pair had just witnessed a typical North Staffordshire four duck transaction. After making their own purchases, they stood eating chips in the shop and found that duck transactions were many, varied and sometimes colourful.

Spreading the word of this weird and wonderful phraseology, they made regular sorties to The Potteries accompanied by friends and curious people, visiting all kinds of establishments where people came into contact. Eventually, the train spotter, after witnessing an amazing sixteen duck transaction in a Wright's Pie shop near Stoke Station, put pen to paper and wrote a large thesis on the phenomenon. By this time. coach loads of visitors from all over the country were descending upon the Five Towns to hear it all for themselves.

That first visit to The Potteries by the train spotter all those years ago laid the foundations of The Potteries tourist industry. People now come from all over the world to stand in chip shops, newsagents and to hang around market stalls to hear this wonderful means of communication for themselves. Over the years, Wedgwood have set up a visitor centre as have The Gladstone Pottery factory and Shugborough Hall - the ancestral home of the Earl of Lichfield.

If it wasn't for the word 'duck', Alton Towers would be a rest home for gentlefolk, Bridgemere Garden World nothing more than a swamp and the head of Staffordshire County Council tourism department would be a bus conductor, but because bus conductors don't exist anymore, he probably wouldn't be anything.

"Hey up duck!! 'Ow at?"

Glossary of Terms:
Afe Crine	Half Crown (Pre-decimal coin)
Back Road	Toilet
Bay Chum Spiders	Beecham's Powders
Bill Joe Nice	Build your own house
Bow	Ball
Chaise 'n' Pittles	Cheese and pickles
Fow staith	False Teeth
Goose low	Go slow
Grain	Green
Grey nice	Greenhouse
Kine Slice	Council house (housing rented from the local government)
Males	Meals
Now tell sin	Nothing else in
Rind abite	Roundabout
Waite	White
Woke	Walk
Woss	Worse

Say that agin!
A BITE	as in "A bite tarm they gotst a job!"
ARM	Part of the verb "to be" as in "Arm owrate Jack"
BACK ROAD	"Weer thee goost when they't bostin"
BOW	Round object. The most familiar Potteries catchphrase is: "Chuck a bow aggen a woe, yed it, kick it an bost it!"
BROCK	Bost, Unusable. In need of repair
CROGGIN'IN	Jumping the queue
DRUG UP	The way we were reared "Weer wost they drug up?"
FANGED OWT	Grabbed, with a view to inflicting injury or punishment.
GIZZIT	Hand it over!
JED	Lifeless
STOON JED	Absolutely lifeless
KICKY SHED IT	Inflict injury
OMMER	Useful tool, often referred to as a 'Birmingham screwdriver'
OWE RATE	Mighty fine!
PACKER DAFT	Load of rubbish
PMT	Stoke-on-Trent's leading bus company which has been serving the people of North Staffordshire since 1898. An integral part of Potteries history.
SHOT A PINK 'UN ITE	Gave birth
SNAPPIN WRAPPIN	Lunch paper
WOSS	Not better
WRIGHT'S PIES	As much a part of the Potteries as oatcakes, lobby and chaise on toast.