The Grimsby accent

Growing up in Grimsby in the 70s and 80s it was an oft said statement that us Grimbarians don't speak with an accent? Why is it that Grimsby folk think this when it is so untrue? Do Mancunians or Liverpudlians think like this too?

A few weeks back I was in a Tesco Express in Rotherham at 2am one morning filling up with fuel and 3 blokes came in to get some fags and pay for their petrol and it was immediately noticeable that they were speaking with Grimsby accents. They were quite surprised when I said hello and that they must be from Grimsby, "how could you tell", they said, "it's not like we have an accent"...

Having lived away from the Town for virtually all of my adult life, for me personally, the Grimsby accent is very distinctive.

From someone who lived in Paaaaaark Street who's niece went to Berrser Street school I couldn't agree more.

Quoted from barralad

From someone who lived in Paaaaaark Street who's niece went to Berrser Street school I couldn't agree more.

I went to Bursar Street school. If only all schools today were that good!

I found one of my old compositions recently. Mr Shorter had written on it "Boring!". He was right. These days teachers wouldn't dare be so dismissive.

Yes we Grimbarians do have a good accent,

Living in suffolk for the last 21 years,

I am pleased I have kept my accent and do not sound suffolk.

I'm Grimsby born and bred but when outsiders come to visit I'm told that I talk differently to other locals, that my accent is not a Grimsby one and actually sounds posher (believe it or not).

Is it possible to live in an area all your life but not pick up the local accent?

I don't live in Grimsby but I do notice a slight accent. Not as bad as a Yorkie one though.

SLIGHT accent? The GY accent is horrific! And no, I don't have one!

Quoted from Biccys

SLIGHT accent? The GY accent is horrific! And no, I don't have one!

I think we should put this into perspective,the Grimbarian accent is very distinctive but it is a gentle accent.Now if you want to hear a gutteral grating accent then simply listen to one born within a few miles of Paragon station.

Got this off face book.

Grimsby language translation

The Concise Grimmo n Meggies Dictionary


A far from exhausting collection of Grimbarian slang, vocabulary and dialect! (Only those with local knowledge, know the hilarity of it!)

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

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!

COMFORT = Yorkie tourist in meggies (Cleethorpes), com'for't'day... com 'for'day, stay'for'week!

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"

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

Deffin / Deffing has to figure somewhere, i never heard that for years till i spoke to someone from grimsby today. (by Helen Kemp)

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

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

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
flipping 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

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

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 urine

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!

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
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

Bez- to travel fast, particularly on a bike ("You should'a seen us bezzin' down the hill!")

Oppen- open, the "o" sound is shortened in a similar fashion to "ovver".

Tiggy- game which in the rest of the English speaking workd is called "tag".

Trackie- a game of group catch played by schoolchildren and teenagers, the objective is to catch all the members of the opposing team and "tig" them. They then join your team. This carries on until only one person is left, and that person is the winner.

..............................plus the fact that most people swear at least once in a sentence,, and don't forget the funny one's like you got any off that sticky excrement, little fellers, bit of nose bag, down the front, bonkers bank, we off for a pint(we off to get drunk out or heads!!)

Brought back a few memories did that B.H.

"I'm off ovver to Ull" Absolute classic!