SO THE good people of Yorkshire are under strict instructions to keep their quaint regional affectations to themselves.
"Love" and "mate" are prohibited for the duration of the Tour de France while it winds its way through the dales.
Yorkshire tourist board has denied reports of frog-marching residents to elocution lessons but says that the use of "love" or "darling" could potentially cause offence and should therefore be avoided. What rot.
I think context is everything. Referring to someone as "pet" is a definite no-no in a board meeting but, during a passing encounter with a kindly stranger or casual acquaintance in the supermarket queue, it is fairly innocuous.
I much prefer that to the old salesman's trick of punctuating every sentence with a person's first name.
It's a toe-curling trait I picked up while working in a call centre during my student days and sometimes find myself slipping back into. We were forced to use a caller's name at least three times in any given call or face reprimand.
Three name checks in a 30 second call to check a balance always came across as overkill.
When the caller was Mr Tickle (yes, really), or worse, it sounded positively facetious.
No, I enjoy discovering the local term of endearment when visiting a new place. As a child, being sent for summer sabbaticals with my grandmother in Falkirk was an eye-opener. My most pressing observation: "Why was everyone called Hen?"
A move to Manchester exposed us to the confusing yet hilarious, "duck". From there, we relocated to Fife, a place blessed with an accent which has been described (not by me: don't write in) as akin to the sound of "a cockerel being throttled".
It took me several years of living there to realise that the ubiquitous Ken was not, in fact, a person.
In Glasgow, everyone was your "pal" and Edinburgh was full of insecure types seeking agreement, ay?
One wonders how the visitors to this summer's Commonwealth Games will take to the local patter.
Perhaps we should print some handy translations on the back of train tickets.
Ho: Excuse me.
How?: Why is that the case?
Gonnae no: Please refrain from doing that.
Gie's a shot?: Could I possibly have a try? (Not to be confused with inoculations or a firearms reference.)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article