If, in this age of instant nationwide communication, you think that regional dialects have died off in the UK, you must be a bit of a noggerhead (as they say in Somerset), or perhaps or a nizgul (from the Black Country), or you're a bit cakey (Staffordshire), or batchy (Essex), mazed (Devon and Somerset), niddy-noddy (Isle of Man), or just gormless (Yorkshire).
Researchers at Leeds University are sifting through a vast collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by a project run by the BBC, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country.
So much information came back that the Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded a team led by Sally Johnson, Professor of Linguistics and Phonetics at Leeds University, £460,000 to study it. Among thousands of items turned up by the BBC Voices project is the range of words the young use to insult one another.
Clive Upton, a member of the research team, who is Professor of English at Leeds University, said that they were "very pleased" - and indeed, "well chuffed" - at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country, or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink"
Scroll down for examples of British regional dialects.
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