Or an idiot.

laiking around

This means larking about. Or playing.

It sounds quite fun, doesn’t it?

But it isn’t.

Especially not if it is Cain, the Dark Rusty Crow of Heckmondwhite, who is laiking around.

You don’t want Cain to “laik around” with you.

Unless you like ending up sitting in the village stream in your best dress and then having to go to bed crying for two weeks.

lawks-a-mercy

“Crikey” but longer.

lollipop lady

We have ladies who help children cross roads after school. They wear yellow coats and have big sticks with a round disc on the top that says STOP! To stop the cars whilst the children cross the road.

The stick with the round stop thing looks like a lollipop.

If you normally eat six-foot lollipops.

mardy bum

“Mardy” means stroppy. Being a spoiled brat.

You know, stomping around yelling, “It’s all about me, dahling, me!!!! Shut up, everyone, I’m talking!! Look at my lovely shoes! Hurrah, it’s me again!!”

Someone who is so bad-tempered and “mardy” that even their bottom is annoyed.

Like Beverley when she found out that although she was engaged to Cain (she bought her own ring), he had two other girlfriends.

Which is why she flung herself in the river.

And ruined her dress because the river was only two inches deep.

Mummers play

Not a mummy’s play, which is what I thought at first. Because a mummy’s play would be quite dull. People all wrapped up in bandages and dead.

No, centuries ago when people didn’t have anything to do and it got dark at three in the afternoon (and that was in summer) they had to make their own “fun.”

They had loads of sheep and woad (blue dye) so Ethelred the Unready or someone said, “Lawks it is boring eth what can we do eth? I know eth lettus dye ourselves blue and go eth to ye local pub and bang people over the heads with these sheep bladders. Oh how they will eth laugh. It will be a hoot eth.”

And so we have been pretending to be them (the “mummers”) for the last 800 years.

nobbliness

I’m on firmer ground here.

Nobbly bits are usually bony bits that look, well, nobbly.

I have loads of it.

In the knee area.

Northern grit

Umph and determination. If you say to a Northern person:

“Don’t go out in that storm, you barm pot. The rain is coming down so hard you will be reduced to half your height.”

The Northerner would say:

“What rain?”

And go out in his underpants.

plectrum

Surely you know what a plectrum is? How do you pluck your guitars in America? And I know you do pluck a lot of guitars because I’ve seen old repeats of Bonanza and Dallas.

But I will explain … it’s that bit of plastic stuff that you hold in your fingers to stroke the strings so that you don’t chip your nail polish.

sjuuuge

When toddlers don’t have many teeth (or brains) they can’t say words properly. So this means “huge.”