Fishy Flaps & Bollocks

WARNING: If you are easily offended, give this post a miss

You’ve probably eaten Pollock, even if you’ve never heard of it. It’s in a lot of Fishy foods like fingers, cakes and even in crab sticks for sushi. Now, you may think that’s a loada bollocks.- unless you buy your fishcakes from Mr. Tesco or your Piss Flaps from Mr Sainsbury.

Piss Flaps shown earlier on blog [what are they?]

I am very interested in our language and how it is used or often misused and you may have seen official notices on the blog that I often highlight.

Grammar & Spelling

Language barriers may arise when the sender makes errors in grammar and spelling. These mistakes can create communication problems in written communication. For example, a person makes a mistake of typing ‘buy’ ‘bye’ ‘meet’ ‘meat’ or ‘red’ ‘read’. I have sent an email to a friend and unknown to me, predictive text had changed it to fiend.

In metal detecting the words commonly confused are ‘horde for ‘hoard’, ‘broach’ for ‘brooch’, and the misuse of ‘amount’ instead of ‘number’ – especially when writing about coins in a hoard.

Before I go any further, can I point out that one of the most satisfying things is to spot someone else’s mistake – especially when it’s a silly misspelling. I’m not a pompous know-it-all. Making mistakes is perfectly reasonable and what makes us human, but the laughter I get from funny spelling errors is one of the giggles on a dull day. Make sure you do a spell check before sending off that missive.

Let’s face it, when I see a good [funny] example of misspelling or misuse of a word I instantly don my grammar police cap and share them on FaceCrap.

Newspapers are a fertile hunting ground for stating the obvious. Look at this hilarious exclusive newspaper example. And if you are going to brag what a good writer you are, you need to write well [Trump]. Can you see the spelling error?

The End : I’m Fed up

I’ve tried again and again to finish this post, but I’ve realised that the subject is so big it’s been abandoned. The muse has left me and I sit here, twiddle my thumbs, don’t achieve much and become increasingly annoyed. I guess that my present condition is caused by something that I’ve experienced for far too long.

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 Strangest Place Names in the North East

I once taught a girl called FAIRCLOUGH. I made the mistake in using the northern style pronunciation FAIR CLUFF, and was told the correct way was FAIR CLO. Which made we wonder if the famous footballer/manager Brian Cluff called Brian Clo down south?

The English language can be challenging at best. Not only do we have words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings – read, bank, bat and bear are good examples – to complicate things further, some words contain heaps of letters that just aren’t needed. Some examples later!

The North East of England [ land of my fathers ] is scattered with bafflingly named places and streets – and it’s great. It’s a quirk of our region that so many things have such bizarre monikers, the origin of many of them having long slipped into obscurity. Some are named in honour of historical figures, others are rooted in long forgotten languages, and others point to Britain’s military history.

The area has been been invaded more times than anyone cares to remember. Its history is a hodgepodge of the various settlers, visitors and aggressors stretching back to pre-Roman times. Not only that, it’s a place which has had an active cultural and political life, the marks of which are everywhere. Understanding somewhere’s name is a good start to understanding a place – so let’s start with the weird ones from County Durham.

Pity Me – the etymology of one of the strangest names is difficult to ascertain, but this is the most interesting. When I was a student the College of the Venerable Bede, the story we were told that when being carried from Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral by monks, they dropped the coffin of St. Cuthbert [Bede}, at which point he implored those carrying him to take pity on him and be more careful. The place of the ’accident’ was thereafter called PITY ME - or it may be reference to a song sung by monks during the Viking invasion …which is a trite boring!

The etymology

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This post was started in early December 2003 … and never finished, but I will publish it … my first blog post of 2024!

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