Cod Almighty | Article

by Pete Green

5 March 2004

Welcome to Cod Almighty's Grimmo Dictionary, a far from exhaustive lexicon of Grimbarian slang and dialect. Should you wish to contest or add to these definitions – and let's face it, these things do tend to be controversial – please use the Cod Almighty feedback page. Ta.

armonia

distinctive pronunciation of the gas generally referred to outside the walls of Ladysmith Road's moribund Birds Eye factory as ammonia; eg. They sent us home early cos there was an armonia leak!

Bags' Ball

uncharitable term for Wednesday nights at Cleethorpes Winter Gardens, when local tradition was once for sexually underutilised young men to relieve their frustrations with women of scandalous seniority

bagwash

laundrette

barrer job

work done for cash in hand by dishonestly using boss's tools and materials; eg. Me mate works for NTL - he'll fit you a digibox as a barrer job!

bawk

like boke if you're from Caistor

bealing

crying

I know where that beer's off

beer-off

off-licence

benny on, get a

become angry; see also monk on

Blue

term of endearment for a friend or family member; eg. We off up town tonight, Blue?

Blundell Park

little-known sporting arena located off the Grimsby Road - "behind McDonalds", as the flyer for a sale of electronic consumer goods held there in 1995 deemed it necessary to explain

Boato

Cleethorpes Boating Lake

bob

a poo; eg. I fell ovver the hoover in the middle of last night when I got up for a bob!

boke

vomit, esp. at the back of a coach on a school trip; retch dryly without vomiting

bomb out

transitive verb: fail without warning to fulfil a social engagement; eg. We was supposed to be playing togger down the Ploggers but me mates bombed us out!

bommy

bonfire

bommy night

Guy Fawkes' night

borry

borrow

budding

the bizarre and probably obsolete childhood practice of pulling buds from rosebushes and throwing them at the windows of houses

buggerlugs

deeply mysterious, not to say worrying, term of simultaneous endearment and abuse used by Grimsby parents addressing young children; eg. Now then, buggerlugs! Eat all that lovely fish or you'll get a clip round the lughole!

celter

rubbish; eg. Town's defence is absolute celter!

chimley

chimney. Extensive research has now established that it isn't just my mum who says this

chuck

throw (verb)

chud; chuddy

chewing gum

clats

derogatory term for unhealthy snack food taken between meals, usually used by your mum

cob

throw (verb)

cob on

see monk on

Coro

distinctively Grimbarian abbreviation for Coronation Street, which is truncated by the rest of the Anglophone world to "Corrie"

Sooner you than me, luv

diesel

equally lethal and sickly beverage comprising lager, cider and blackcurrant cordial; less imaginatively referred to elsewhere as "snakebite and black"

div

idiot; contraction of NW England term divvy

does do

verb form described by linguists as "the Grimbarian double performative"; most famous occurrence in GTFC 1997-98 season highlights video: McDermott won't keep that in... oh! He does do!

Dolly, the

The Dolphin, extinct pub on a corner near Cleethorpes marketplace; now 'Reflex', an 80s theme bar

down town

synonym for up town used by my little brother in his early teens to try and sound all cool and American

egging at back o' Doigs

largely archaic term signifying an act of futility but used for purposes of evasion after speaker is interrogated as to their intentions or destination; eg. Where was yer last night? responded to by Egging at back o' Doigs! (cf. on Eastenders, when somebody asks: "Where ya gah-in' nah?" and the other person always replies: "Ahhht!") Egging was the act of collecting eggs from birds' nests (in the days when this was both legal and not considered morally dubious), while Doigs was a Grimsby shipyard, the surrounding area of which was bereft of wildlife; hence the futility of egging at the back of Doigs

Emmy, the

New Empire pub, Runswick Road, scene of excessive consumption of Double Diamond in formative days of this lexicographer

Flyover, the

overpass on the A180 running parallel to the docks from Riby Square

football

obscure team sport watched by inhabitants of other towns

Off up Freemo this afto

Freemo

Freeman Street, trading thoroughfare that links Grimsby docks with the town centre and has mirrored the commercial decline of the fisheries accordingly. In its heyday, returning trawlermen would drink their entire wages between Riby Square and Hainton Square before getting home. Home of Freemo market, where products ranging from lamb fillets to slug pellets can be procured at competitive prices and variable quality

giz

give me; give us

glag; glag alley

large marble

These are glag alleys. That is their name.

godge

a look; eg. Giz a godge at yer glag alley!

goodies

sweets

goosegogs

gooseberries. I've just heard Ross Burden use this word on Ready Steady Cook and no way is he from Grimmo, but it's a nice one so I think we'll keep it in anyway

Grimmo

Grimsby. Current research suggests that the term emerged in the mid-1990s as a humorous tribute to the townspeople's fondness for abbreviating words by taking the first syllable and adding the letter O (see Freemo, immo, Boato, etc)

grufty

dirty

Gullies

Gulliver's, smallest nightclub in the world and on Tuesday nights Grimsby's enduring sole concession to 'alternative' music. Raised area of seating opposite DJ booth, on the right as you go in, is known as Goth Corner, which is kind of self-explanatory

guts for garters, have your

staggeringly gruesome threat of punishment or retribution made mostly, again, by loving parents to young children (see also buggerlugs)

immo

immature; used in early teens to denounce behaviour of peer and confer spurious sense of adulthood on speaker; eg. You're dead immo, you are, Greenie!

jiffle

fidget (verb)

joskin

rural type, esp. hailing from the Lincolnshire flatlands south of Grimsby

kaylie

sherbet; not a homophone of Marillion song, is pronounced to rhyme with KY; origins unknown

kegs

underpants

kinell

fucking hell

lob

throw (verb)

lug; lughole

ear. For minor misdemeanours deemed not to justify having their guts for garters, wayward children may be issued with a clip round the lughole

US tennis star, Stroppy Haddock

mardy

ill-humoured; irritable; arsey. By no means confined to North East Lincolnshire in its geographical reach, the term has nonetheless been given an amusingly Grimmo twist by the recent emergence of US tennis star Mardy Fish

meff

schoolboy term signifying an unattractive female

Meggies

Cleethorpes; originates from Meg's Island, an obsolete term for the area around Isaac's Hill

mell you in; mell your head in

inflict violence upon you

mesen

myself; eg. Well if you don't want yer goosegogs, I'll eat 'em all mesen!

mib

small marble

monk on, have a

be mardy. The disaffected Grimbarian may alternatively elect to have a cob or a benny on, presumably in the same place the monk is worn

now then!

hello!

Nunny, the

Nunsthorpe, housing estate of ill repute in the south-west of Grimsby. Drugs, joyriding, all that caper. Many Grimbarians insist that the Nunny is no worse than some other areas but just gets all the bad press when the Grimsby Telegraph runs one of its 'Crime: Let's Misrepresent It' campaigns

nunty

style of dress and design suggesting poor taste, premature ageing and a hard life. See here for an unnecessarily detailed explanation

off

going; eg. I'm off ovver to Ull tomorrer!

ovver

over

Key component of packing up

packing up

packed lunch

pag

transitive verb: to (illegally) take a passenger on one's pushbike in such a configuration that they occupy the saddle and hold onto one's hips for balance while one pedals and steers from a standing position; eg. I pagged him all the way from the Nunny! Also noun: the ride given in this manner; eg. Pags are dead immo!

pallie

pallet, esp. when working in a factory that uses them

piggy-pag

piggyback ride

Ploggers, the

esoteric but universally employed vernacular for Hardy's Recreation Ground, an alarmingly desolate patch of grass between Ladysmith Road and Humberstone Road

Precinct, the

alternative term for the Freshney Place shopping centre; predates its construction and hence not used by Grimbarians aged under 35

Rammies

Ron Ramsden's supermarket, eg. Me mam used to work in Rammies!

reckon

erroneously believe oneself to be hard; attempt to propagate such a belief. Also reckoner: one who reckons, eg. He's not hard - he's just a reckoner! I cobbed his packing up box ovver a wall and he started bealing!

right bobby dazzler, look a

appear smartly dressed and groomed, eg. You look a right bobby dazzler! Off up the Bags' Ball, are yer?

roaring

crying

rose; roseeeey; rose on the nose (and not on the toes)

negates preceding assertion for wind-up purposes; see also stuh

Scaffer

Scartho, well-to-do suburb in the extreme south of Grimsby. Alternative 'posh' pronunciation SCAW-thoe is used exclusively to take the piss

Scafferbaffs

swimming pool located on Scartho Road

scraps

stray pieces of batter from fried fish supplied gratis by chippies with your chips

scrob

mild term of abuse believed by some to have originally signified a Danish fisherman

slotties

amusement arcades, esp. along Cleethorpes seafront; derived from 'slot machines'

soz

sorry

soz, Mum!

your strident and hectoring tone is becoming reminiscent of my mother's!

If you swallow it, it will kill you

spoggy

chewing gum; bubblegum

stitherum

a convoluted account of events; eg. Butcher's match report is always a right stitherum!

struts

stickleback, esp. when seeking to catch them from Chapman's Pond or the Boating Lake using a flimsy net purchased cheaply on the seafront. Male stickleback that have acquired high colour during the mating season are known by some as red doctors. Well, probably just by me and the lad I used to go fishing with when we were kids, actually

stuh

negates preceding assertion as per Wayne's World-style not; used by schoolchildren in 1980s for purposes of mockery and ridicule; eg. Nice pair of trainers, Greenie... stuh!

taffled

tangled

togger

football as played in a park or recreation ground

tomorrer

tomorrow

Top Town

area in Grimsby town centre, boundaries of which remain the subject of furious debate among Grimbarians. I always thought it was the bit around the Bull Ring but am bound to get 50 scrillion emails arguing otherwise. Home of Top Town Market, an alternative to Freemo market that also sells used Mills & Boon novels and pieces of foam rubber

traino

former route of Grimsby-Louth railway, widely used (albeit probably illegally) as a convenient pedestrian shortcut and secluded area for illicit drinking and drug use, between December 1980, when the line was closed, and the mid-1990s, when the traino was obliterated by the Peaks Parkway section of the A16, opened to traffic in October 1998 (but it doesn't look much like a park to me, unless it's one with cars instead of trees)

tret

past tense and past participle of treat; eg. I went round me Nan's and she tret us to some spoggy!

twag; twag it

play truant

Ull

Yorkshire city situated opposite Grimsby on the estuary of the Umber; see also Yorkie

Umber

river upon whose estuary Grimsby is situated; often mistakenly called the sea

Up town, top town or down town

up town

remaining area of Grimsby town centre not covered by the term Top Town

us

used as first-person singular as well as plural; eg. I went round me Nan's and she tret us to some spoggy!

yersen

yourself; eg. You off ovver to Ull by yersen?

yonks

indefinite but lengthy period of time; eg. I haven't been to Wonderland for yonks! Again, not exclusive to Grimmo, but I like it

Yorkie

native of Yorkshire - representative of the outside world and hence a figure to be feared and maligned

Profuse thanks to Tim B, Glenn Bateman, Bill Brewster, Johnny C, Alan Edward Critchley, Richard Dawson, Ed Fleet, Chris Green, Mat Hare, Rich Mills, Paul Thundercliffe, Tabatha, and Jerry Woolner for their contributions to this page