Geordie is both a regional nickname for a person from the larger Tyneside region of
North East England and the name of the English language dialect spoken by its inhabitants.
The term is concomitant with Tyneside, South Northumberland northern parts of County Durham
and North East of England. Depending on who is using it, the catchment area for the term
"Geordie" can be as large as the whole of North East England.
In many respects Geordie speech is a direct continuation and development of the language
spoken by the Anglo-Saxon settlers of this region. They were mercenaries employed by
the ancient Brythons to fight the Pictish invaders after the end of Roman rule in Britannia
in the 5th century; the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who thus arrived became over time ascendant
politically and – through population transfer from tribal homelands in Northern Europe – culturally
over the native British. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged during the Dark Ages spoke largely
mutually intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat
in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon. This linguistic conservatism can be seen today
to the extent that poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede translate more
successfully into Geordie than into present day Standard English. Thus in Northern England
and the Scottish borders, then dominated by the kingdom of Northumbria was found a distinct
"Northumbrian" Old English dialect. Later Irish and Scottish admixture influenced the
dialect. In more recent years the North East area has seen migrants from the rest of the
world as well. In recent times, "Geordie" has been used to
refer to a supporter of Newcastle United, despite many Geordies supporting other local
teams, and the Newcastle Brown Ale schooner glassware used to serve beer in the United
States.
Geographical coverage When referring to the people, as opposed to
the dialect, dictionary definitions of a Geordie typically refer to "a native or inhabitant
of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, or its environs", an area that encompasses Blyth, Ashington,
North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside and Gateshead.
The term itself, using Brockett, originated from all the North East coal mines. Depending
on who is using it, the catchment area for the term "Geordie" can be as large as the
whole of North East England or as small as the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the metropolitan
boroughs of Tyneside. People from Sunderland have been nicknamed
"Mackems" in recent decades. The earliest known recorded use of the term found by an
Oxford English Dictionary word hunt occurred only as late as 1988. People from Middlesbrough
are nicknamed Smoggies due to its industrial heritage.
Just as a Cockney is often colloquially defined as someone "born within the sound of the Bow
bells", the term Geordie is sometimes defined as "within spitting distance of the Tyne"
and thus Geordieland could be thought of as the watershed and bioregion of the River Tyne,
and Geordies as its inhabitants. Etymology
A number of rival theories explain how the term came about, though all accept that it
derives from a familiar diminutive form of the name George, "a very common name among
the pitmen" in North East England; indeed, it was once the most popular name for eldest
sons in the region. One explanation is that it was established
during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The Jacobites declared that the natives of Newcastle
were staunch supporters of the Hanoverian kings, in particular of George II during the
1745 rebellion. This contrasted with rural Northumbria, which largely supported the Jacobite
cause. If true, the term may have derived from the popular anti-Hanoverian song "Cam
Ye O'er Frae France?", which calls the first Hanoverian king "Geordie Whelps", a play on
"George the Guelph". Another explanation for the name is that local
miners in the northeast of England used Geordie safety lamps, designed by George Stephenson,
known locally as "Geordie the engine-wright", in 1815 rather than the competing Davy lamps,
designed by Humphry Davy, used in other mining communities. Using the chronological order
of two John Trotter Brockett books, Geordie was given to North East pitmen; later he acknowledges
that the pitmen also christened their Stephenson lamp Geordie.
Linguist Katie Wales also dates the term earlier than does the current Oxford English Dictionary;
she observes that Geordy was a common name given to coal mine pitmen in ballads and songs
of the region, noting that such usage turns up as early as 1793. It occurs in the titles
of two songs by songwriter Joe Wilson: "Geordy, Haud the Bairn" and "Keep your Feet Still,
Geordie". Citing such examples as the song "Geordy Black", written by Rowland Harrison
of Gateshead, she contends that, as a consequence of popular culture, the miner and the keelman
had become icons of the region in the 19th century, and "Geordie" was a label that "affectionately
and proudly reflected this," replacing the earlier ballad emblem, the figure of Bob Crankie.
Newcastle publisher Frank Graham's Geordie Dictionary states:
The origin of the word Geordie has been a matter of much discussion and controversy.
All the explanations are fanciful and not a single piece of genuine evidence has ever
been produced.
In Graham's many years of research, the earliest record he found of the term's use was in 1823
by local comedian Billy Purvis. Purvis had set up a booth at the Newcastle Races on the
Town Moor. In an angry tirade against a rival showman, who had hired a young pitman called
Tom Johnson to dress as a clown, Billy cried out to the clown:
Ah man, wee but a feul wad hae sold off his furnitor and left his wife. Noo, yor a fair
doon reet feul, not an artificial feul like Billy Purvis! Thous a real Geordie! gan man
an hide thysel! gan an' get thy picks agyen. Thou may de for the city, but never for the
west end o' wor toon.
(Rough translation: "Oh man, who but a fool would have sold off his furniture and left
his wife? Now, you're a fair downright fool, not an artificial fool like Billy Purvis!
You're a real Geordie! Go on, man, and hide yourself! Go on and get your picks [axes]
again. You may do for the city, but never for the west end of our town!")
Graham is backed up historically by John Camden Hotten, who wrote in 1869: "Geordie, general
term in Northumberland and Durham for a pitman, or coal-miner. Origin not known; the term
has been in use more than a century." Using Hotten as a chronological reference, Geordie
has been documented for at least 245 years as meaning the whole of the North East of
England. Bad-weather Geordy was a name applied to cockle
sellers:
As the season at which cockles are in greatest demand is generally the most stormy in the
year – September to March – the sailors' wives at the seaport towns of Northumberland
and Durham consider the cry of the cockle man as the harbinger of bad weather, and the
sailor, when he hears the cry of 'cockles alive,' in a dark wintry night, concludes
that a storm is at hand, and breathes a prayer, backwards, for the soul of Bad-Weather-Geordy.
Travel writer Scott Dobson used the term "Geordieland" in a 1973 guidebook to refer collectively
to Northumberland and Durham. Phonology
Geordie consonants generally follow those of Received Pronunciation. Some phonological
characteristics specific to Geordie are listed as follows:
Geordie is non-rhotic, like most Anglo-English dialects. This means speakers do not pronounce
unless it is followed by a vowel sound in that same phrase or prosodic unit. The rhotic
sound in Geordie is pronounced as [ɹ]. There is some differentiation in pronunciation
in the Geordie dialect based upon the speaker's sex. For example, English sound , pronounced
generically in Geordie as [əʊ], may also have other, more specific pronunciations depending
upon whether one is male or female. Males alone often pronounce the sound as [uː],
for example, the word house pronounced as [huːs]. Females, on the other hand, will
often pronounce this sound as [eʉ], thus: [heʉs].
appearing in an unstressed final syllable of a word is pronounced as [ən].
appearing at the end of a word is pronounced as [a].
Yod-coalescence in both stressed and unstressed syllables.
T glottalization, in which is realised by [ʔ] before a syllabic nasal, in absolute
final position, and whenever the is intervocalic so long as the latter vowel is not stressed.
specifically in the words had, have, has and having is pronounced as [ɛ].
specifically in words with the spelling "ea" may be pronounced as [iː].
specifically at the ends of words, with the spelling "ow" is pronounced as [a] in monosyllabic
words and [ə] in polysyllabic words. In a newspaper survey, the Geordie accent
was found to be the "most attractive in England". Vocabulary
The Geordie dialect shares similarities with other Northern English dialects, as well as
with the Scots language and Hiberno-English. In her column for the South Shields Gazette,
Dorothy Samuelson-Sandvid attested many samples of Geordie language usage, such as the nouns
bairn and clarts; the adjectives canny and clag; and the imperative verb phrase howay
Howay is broadly comparable to the invocation "Come on!" or the French "Allez-y!". Examples
of common use include Howay man!, meaning "come on" or "hurry up", Howay the lads! as
a term of encouragement for a sports team for example, or Ho'way!? expressing incredulity
or disbelief. The literal opposite of this phrase is haddaway; although not as common
as howay, it is perhaps most commonly used in the phrase "Haddaway an' shite".
Another word, divvie or divvy, seems to come from the Co-op dividend, or from the two Davy
lamps, and the later better designed Davy designed by Humphry Davy also called the Divvy.)
As in a north east miner saying 'Marra, ye keep way from me if ye usin a divvy.' It seems
the word divvie then translated to daft lad/lass. Perhaps coming from the fact one would be
seen as foolish going down a mine with a Scotch Divvy when there are safer lamps available,
like the Geordie, or the Davy. The Geordie word netty, meaning a toilet and
place of need and necessity for relief or bathroom, has an uncertain origin, though
some have theorised that it may come from slang used by Roman soldiers on Hadrian's
Wall, which may have later become gabinetti in the Romanic Italian language. However gabbinetto
is the Modern Italian diminutive of gabbia, which actually derives from the Latin cavea,
the root of the loanwords that became the Modern English cave, cage, and gaol. Thus,
another explanation would be that it comes from a Modern Romanic Italian form of the
word gabinetti, though only a relatively small number of Italians have migrated to the North
of England, mostly during the 19th century. Some etymologists connect the word netty to
the Modern English word needy. John Trotter Brockett, writing in 1829 in his A glossary
of north country words..., claims that the etymon of netty is the Modern English needy
and need. Bill Griffiths, in A Dictionary of North East
Dialect, points to the earlier form, the Old English níd; he writes: "MS locates a possible
early ex. "Robert Hovyngham sall make... at the other end of his house a knyttyng" York
1419, in which case the root could be OE níd 'necessary'". Another related word, nessy
is thought to derive from the Modern English "necessary".
A poem called "Yam" narrated by author Douglas Kew, demonstrates the usage of a lot of Geordie
words. Media
In recent times, the Geordie dialect has featured prominently in the British media, not only
due to its alien dialect to much of the population but also its perceived friendly appeal. Television
presenters such as Ant and Dec are now happy to use their natural accents on air. Marcus
Bentley, the commentator on the UK edition of Big Brother, is often perceived by southerners
to have a Geordie dialect. However, he grew up in Stockton on Tees. Brendan Foster and
Sid Waddell have both worked as television sports commentators. Cheryl Cole, a member
of Girls Aloud and judge on The X Factor, has a Geordie accent, she says that she's
"proud to be Geordie!" as does Joe McElderry the winner of the sixth series of The X Factor.
In May 2011 Cheryl Cole was let go from the American version of The X Factor because its
"producers feared the American audience would not understand her Geordie accent." While
hosting during a May 2011 taping of Britain's Got Talent, Dec Donnelly made an apparent
attempt to stand up for Cole by asking co-producer and judge Simon Cowell on the show, "Can you
understand my accent?". Little Mix members Perrie Edwards and Jade
Thirlwall are both Geordies. The song "Why Aye Man" is also a popular Geordie
song by Mark Knopfler. The dialect was also popularized by the comic
magazine Viz, where the dialect is often conveyed phonetically by unusual spellings within the
comic strips. Viz magazine was founded on Tyneside by two locals, Chris Donald and his
brother Simon. The Steve Coogan-helmed BBC comedy I'm Alan
Partridge featured a Geordie named Michael as the primary supporting character and de
facto best friend of the eponymous hero, despite Partridge's referring to Michael at one point
as 'just the Work Geordie' and having great difficulty understanding what he says.
The movie Goal!, which stars Kuno Becker and Alessandro Nivola, prominently exposes the
Newcastle football club, as well as exposing the Geordies and their dialect.
Mike Neville and George House, presenters of the BBC local news programme Look North,
in the 1960s and 1970s, not only incorporated Geordie into the show, albeit usually in comedy
pieces pointing up the gulf between ordinary Geordies and officials speaking Standard English,
but were responsible for a series of recordings, beginning with Larn Yersel' Geordie which
attempted, not always seriously, to bring the Geordie dialect to the rest of England.
The creator of Larn Yersel' Geordie was local humorist Scott Dobson, who wrote several booklets
on the theme in the early 1970s, including History O' the Geordies, Advanced Geordie
Palaver, The Geordie Joke Book and The Little Broon Book.
The Jocks and the Geordies was a Dandy comic strip running from 1975 to the early 1990s.
In the lyrics of the song "Sailing to Philadelphia" by Mark Knopfler, Jeremiah Dixon describes
himself as a "Geordie boy. Jeremiah Dixon, surveyor of the Mason-Dixon line". Knopfler
also includes a "Geordie" reference in the song "5:15 am," from the album Shangri-La:
"the bandit man / came up the great north road / up to geordieland / to mine the motherlode."
In an earlier live album and video, Alchemy: Dire Straits Live, the band are seen in a
pub – on the wall hangs a scoreboard for darts featuring "Geordies" vs. "All Others."
Dorfy, real name Dorothy Samuelson-Sandvid, was a noted Geordie dialect writer who once
wrote for the South Shields Gazette. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was a popular fictional
British comedy-drama series about three Geordies leaving England to go and find work in Germany
during the heights of unemployment in Thatcher's Britain. Finding work on a building site in
Düsseldorf, they lived there on-site in a basic wooden hut as part of a group of seven
British migrant construction workers: the other four were Wayne from London, Bomber
from somewhere in the West Country, Barry from the West Midlands, and Moxey from Liverpool.
The three Geordie characters were supposed to be from Birtley Co. Durham, Gateshead,
and North Shields and all three actors who played them were Geordies themselves.
The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook with Geordie Simon King and Dave Myers. The duo's lifestyle TV
show is a mixture of cookery and travelogue. In 1974, Alan Price's "Jarrow Song" reached
number one in the old RNI International Service, and number 4 in the UK charts, which brought
to the attention once again of the Jarrow March.
The character Detective Inspector Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the long-running ITV series Inspector
Morse is a self-described Geordie – although not a "professional" one. His speech variety
serves as a foil to Morse's pedantry and RP. The character "Geordie Georgie", as portrayed
by Catherine Tate in her eponymous TV show, is a Geordie, complete with a thick affected
accent, and is portrayed regularly taking part in sponsored events for a North East
based charity – the charity in question usually has a website with an outrageous domain
name, for instance, the site for the charity she supports for battered husbands is "www.chinnedbythemissus.co.uk".
The sketches usually conclude with her remonstrating her co-worker Martin, sometimes by violent
means, for his apparent non-support of her charitable crusades.
The MTV programme Geordie Shore is set in Newcastle. It is a spin-off of Jersey Shore.
Richard Adams novel The Plague Dogs features a fox who speaks 'Northumbrian' Geordie, with
a pronunciation guide and glossary. Scott Dobson provided assistance on the dialect.
Actor Robson Green is a Geordie. Standup comic Ross Noble, a Newcastle native, has been known
to make jokes about being Geordie. Capitalizing on pride in speaking Geordie,
a number of objects are sold that highlight Geordie speech and culture, such as a "Borth
Sortificat for a genuine Geordie", coffee mugs, etc.
Charlie Hunnam, who hails from Newcastle, refers to the swagger he walks with in Pacific
Rim as a "Geordie walk." Notes
References Watt, Dominic; Allen, William, "Tyneside English",
Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33: 267–271, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001397
External links Newcastle English
Sounds Familiar?– Listen to examples of Geordie and other regional accents and dialects
of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
'Hover & Hear' Geordie pronunciations, and compare side by side with other accents from
the UK and around the World. The Geordie Directory – Find out about & learn
the Geordie accent How To Get A Geordie Accent, in which actor
and voice coach Gareth Jamison explains the essentials of the Geordie accent
A Geordie Dialect Song that describes a romantic encounter on the short bus journey from St
James' Park to the General Hospital: Mother of Me Bairns