Welcome to Merseytalk, which is about to undergo some reconstruction, long overdue. By the end of the summer of 2001 we hope to have a home page which will allow visitors to register and comment on what all is here and to suggestion additions. There are slightly over 2500 usages gathered here, organized alphabetically in twenty- six files. The collecting will continue, but we would be surprised to have more than 3,000 entries for usages by this time next year. Entries will expand, though: as we get further into Liverpool social history, we are finding more to say about the usages already collected. The reconstructed website will allow the visitor to click on to each of the 2500-3000 usages. This should eliminate the tedious prowling down the twenty-six letter files, some of which are quite large.
We have also organized a large portion of the usages thematically into twenty-four files, and in each of those files is a collection of sayings relevant to the central theme of that file. The titles of those twenty-four files have been changed somewhat. The major change will be that the file on work and docker's nicknames will merge with the one on professions, and a new file on street cries and songs will be added. Here is how the new index will read:
1. the body and physical appearances
2. the child's world
3. comparisons: more thans, less thans
4. crime, law, and order
5. dismissive remarks about
6. drinking
7. drugs
8. ethnic give and takes
9. food and eating
10. money and spending
11. old age and dying
12. raillery and verbal confrontations
13. religion
14. rhyming slang among Liverpudlians
15. sexuality
16. similes
17. snobbery, hybris, and better than thouism
18. sports
19. time
20. toilet, privy and bog
21. violence
22. the weather
23. work, the professions, and docker's nicknames
24. street cries and songs
Most of the immediate additions will have to do with children's games and with street cries and songs. You should be able to have complete and unimpeded access to all the contents of this site while all the changes are going on. Tom Van is working on a preface which tells some of the story of discovering this amazing speech community and then being allowed to be a part of it as a recorder and as a friend. He will be looking about this summer for somone to contribute a historical introduction to the site. Again, we would like to thank everyone for their interest.
Finally, there is the matter of sources and credits. Each entry lists several sources, but we have so many sources for most of the entries at this point that there is no listing all of them. For the time being, each source has been given identifying initials in capitals. The file for sources in hard copy and film is organized alphabetically not by the last names of authors, but by those capitalized initials. In addition to movies and hard copy material, we have been in regular contact with seventy-five informants over the past five years and with seventy-five others intermittently: all of them scousers in various parts of the world, or still in Great Britain, and thirty of them still in living in the Pool.
So muck in, friends, you're at your granny's!
Preface of July 5, 2000(to be replaced in the summer of 2001)
The some two thousand usages on these pages were gathered over the last several years from books, correspondence, speakers, and movies connected with the Merseyside area of Liverpool, England. I wanted to praise and demonstrate the wit and originality of a speech community which has, in my opinion, too often been dismissed or caricatured as being other than standard and therefore less than human. The most important sources for this list are the four volumes in the Lern Yerself Scouse series put out by the Scouse Press under the editorship of Fritz Spiegl. He loves the City of Liverpool, its ways, its history, and its talk, with wit and sophistication. He knows the music of this English, and he presents it to us con brio. Next in importance among the sources are the daily gives and takes among Liverpudlians worldwide on the Scouse listserve run by the University of Liverpool. Bernie Friery, the Webmaster for that site, is a source of order and accommodation to everyone involved. Peter Moloney kindly read and commented on an earlier version of this list. I want this list to be worthy of Peter's wit, erudition and generosity, for in all three, he excels.
I estimate (I will be mathematically precise about that anon) that close to seventy-five percent of the items on this list originated in some form in the Scouse Press books and the listserve. I have used radio programs in Merseyside, personal interviews with Liverpudlians on both sides of the pond, movies, and serendipity to harvest the rest. All entries should list at least one source, even if at this point I may have dozens of citations in notes or hard copy for each of them. The initials in capital letters refer you to the full bibliographical description of a source in the file marked on this page as "Sources." I am aware that my Source file needs updating. I also know uncomfortably that there will have to be some phonetic justice done to the sounds of Merseysiders. I hope to have that ready by the end of the summer, 2000.
Many of the usages can be grouped around a central category of experience, i.e., sexuality, raillery, etc. I decided on twenty-four topical headings, to give some sense of the pool of options for talking about a given experience, and therefore the possibilities of variety and play for the verbally astute. There might have been 48 topics, or 96, etc. I understand that the Oxford Dictionary of Slang has as many as 720.
Many of the usages are obsolete. A young adult speaker in Merseyside would not understand them, even as archaisms or shelved antiques. I included them because I wanted to give some sense of thedistinct and independent linguistic traditions in this community.
Ultimately this list will give credit to all the informants I have used. That information right now is in mounds in file drawers. Credit is due so many. The mistakes belong to me alone. This website is only temporary. One day it (and stories from Liverpudlians which I have been collecting) will be part of a much more elaborate site containing information about all aspects of Liverpool social history done in cooperation with two savvy Liverpudlians, Stan Kelly-Bootle (now of San Francisco) and Iain Taylor( now of Halifax). They have encouraged me, put up with my gaffes, and shared. This Sunday I head to the Bodleian for a few weeks to try to add to my knowledge of Liverpool history. When I talk with them about Liverpool History, I am obviously the one in need of remediation. This website will be made available to the Scouse listserve, so that the Scousers who talk daily there can, if they please, point out its shortcomings and suggest improvements. I will be in Liverpool in July for the Scouser Millennial Celebration and Reunion. There too, I will welcome all kudos and lambasting.
Tom Van
tavan@digicove.com
Alphabetical Listing of Terms and Phrases
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R |
S |
T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Topical Listing of Terms and Phrases