P197 archived entries

give up Never chuck yer and in: never give up

people of Irish stock. In Lancashire, paddy came to mean ill temper. Paddy's lantern was a jocular Lancashire term for the moon, as was Paddy's grapes for potato.

a dock police officer

the belly

another name for the old Coliseum Movie Theatre

an indigestible ligament of meat, used by children as something upon which to chew. Spiegl suggests that the song with the chorus "knick-knack paddywack, give a dog a bone" probably comes from this. Stan Kelly-Bootle thinks that the usage goes back to as early as 1740. I note that in early nineteenth century Lancashire "paxwax" referred to the tendon in a neck of veal. That could be the root of "paddy wack."

the Roman Catholic cathedral in Liverpool

a place where all sorts of second hand stuff can be bought, and virtually everything else in God's plenty. Originally this was St. Martin's Market, which was established in 1862 on Banastre Street. The name "Paddy's Market" came from the Irish sailors and famine immigrants, who went to it for inexpensive buys. After this site was badly damaged in World War II bombing it was demolished, and the the New Market of Great Homer Street became the "Paddy's Market" we have today.

abbreviation used by hospital casualty officers. It means "pissed and fell over."

a false or disingenuous woman, but these days it's just a teasing remark

a promiscuous woman, perhaps from the word "palliasse," of French derivation, which meant straw mattress.

the ship is about to dock and hands are out for gratuities.

police car painted black and white

list of National Health Service Doctors for a given district

paranoid. One phrase for a psychopath is "crazy paving."

along with Lime Street, this was the street famous for its actual and semi-mythical prostitutes in the nineteenth century. It is referred to in song and shanty.

sidewalks

No definition was supplied in the archived entry.

rain

another scouse teasing insult, liberally offered.

a red and white marble for playing.

a strong-smelling brand of Turkish cigarette

the person who receives the wallet from the dipper (or dip), who has just stolen it.

assembly of relatives at the bedside of a sick or dying person

women's long underwear

sick

speaking emphatically

pea soup, often soup from cheap meat.

to fall off a boat into the water

dandelions

in headquarters parlance, a female police officer.

check points on a Bobbie's (a policeman's) round

labor pool for dock workers

cigarettes bought one or several at a time

earlier form of Government sponsored medical insurance in Britain, in return for a small investment on the part of the insured.

bus tickets, often available during the school holidays for anywhere in Liverpool and a penny for the return.

yet another word for penis

television

to be very upset about something which has or has not happened, often because a wonderful opportunity has been lost.

the person who is merely the unsuspecting agent in some catastrophe, but not the one to blame.

a male homosexual

in police parlance, this is getting an identification or recognition of someone which may prove useful in the future.

a ship's steward

legs The missing rhyming component is dolly pegs

stinks

a nunnery

a trivial, insignificant person

apples well past their prime and therefore sold cheaply

a large mug of tea

vagina. Minard says this is obsolete. The original word was pinny-wiper.

very low or token rent

any man who openly admires girls

a safe

a small glass which contains more than a quarter of a pint but less than a half pint of beer. Another name for it: a "Dodger." Hudson was a beer-engine maker who always strictly limited his morning consumption of ale to about two-thirds of a half-pint glass.

a lavatory(from the phrase "little house), loo, WC. Petty-pirate: a lavatory attendant. Petty-poet: lavatory graffitist; Moloney suggests that a petty-grievance would be "no loo roll," no toilet paper.

chamber pot. To have "one foot in one's piddle pot" is to be out of it or somehow missing the point.

standing around like a dummy, while someone (usually a child) keeps you waiting.

the crew bar on a ship

term of endearment for a child, probably from the iron and steel industry, where a pig is a bar of iron. Pig smelt would then be the source. But the analogy may be with "cow's melt," which can also be used as a term of endearment.

an imaginary article for which children are sent on a fool's errand. To pigeon means to cheat, delude, or swindle.

Merseyside high-rise flats

children's street game

small sea fish, similar to herring, but smaller and rouder, and taken in great numbers off the coast of Cornwall and Devon.

a cigarette

to ride behind on a horse, or in the rumble seat of a car

to be outraged

penis. As raillery, the word usually refers to a male. It comes from the now obsolete "pillcock," which meant penis.The term today is one of jovial address, comparable to "dickhead."

a popular meal consisting of meat pie and fried potatoes. The original phrase was probably "pie and chips."

small clay marble

pinafore, usually tied behind, rather than pinned in front

legs

a pint of Falstaff ale

a croupier in a casino

the male urinary system

to be traveling through the Mersey Tunnel

drinking with the sole intention of getting drunk

to sabotage some plan

a habitual drinker

a drinking bout, a party gotten up to do some heavy drinking

if nothing else is working out "If the piss is off, gerrus a pinta lager."

a physician

girl hired to work above ground in a colliery, sorting coal by grade. the phrase is now used metaphorically to describe an entry level or lowly position in a work-place.

a young horse which would be used down in the mines

the entire football(soccer) field

See "toss skewl" on this list

a rope skipping game

The Pavilion Theatre of sacred and distant memory

children's ball game which involves throwing a ball up against a wall, doing actions while the ball is up, and then still catching it. Actions: hip heel, toe, ground, whirley, baker-baker-baker, etc. If the thrower gets through the first round, he or she then has to do each action twice, and so on.

detectives

a routine term of abuse

to be playing on an artificial surface, e.g., astroturf.

a Wirralite, someone from the Wirral area, or from Formby or Southport. These are often profiled as posh areas, compared to working-class Merseyside. Sometimes the full phrase for these relatively well off suburban scousers is "plackie scousers," and the taunt or dismissive remark is "Plackie Scousers, Mickey Mousers."

feet. Plawts meaning feet is no doubt an offshoot of this.

to raise a fuss

sexual intercourse

masturbation by a prostitute

this is less harmless than it seems. The full phrase is to play tic (or tick), i.e., tag, with hatchets. Cf. the lore about the Bootle area, where the residents are said to be so ferocious that they "play tick with hatchets."

to be laughing uncontrollably about something

a rubber-soled canvas shoe

yet another word for penis

a wine drinker. Plonk can also man cheap or diluted alcohol.

to have no trace of Scouse in one's accent, perhaps to be hewing to Received Pronunciation and "school driven" usages.

testicles, as in "hold your plums," or get ready for something spectacular or unexpected. The phrase was a standby line in a popular quiz game on Radio Merseyside.

wide knickerbockers, as worn by golfers. The plus four may refer to the four inch increase in length to achieve the overhang. Scousers often deliberately say "plus fours" when they are referring to "petits fours."

rich people

a pound (rhyming)

to be searching for some desired item, or looking for an opportunity

Bread and hot milk or any similarly insipid meal. The Lancashire term for this is pobbies, probably coming from the Welsh "pobi," meaning to bake.

chamber pots (probably a shortening of pot de chambre .

poker machines, usually found in hotels or casinos

chamber pot, perhaps another version of po, for pot de chambre

a prostitute

clothing distributed early last century by the police to the very poor, usually stamped as such, so that they could not be pawned

the equivalent of a wooden nickel, which would be a sign that the recipient has been had.

Australians Perhaps from POHM, Prisoner of Her Majesty, on the jackets of the earlier immigrants? Much earlier, the word referred to a diet of potatoes, out of the French "pommes de terre."

over-posh, effete. There is rhyming in the background with "nonce," and today the word can mean gay(homosexual).

a popular local treat.

an unpleasant smell

a soldier or a marine(military slang). Pongo was the dog in the Punch and Judy skits who wore a cap similar to that later worn by the military. Pong meaning stink may be part of the history of there.

an old shawl or worn-out blanket. Spiegl thinks this is derived from "poncho."

twenty-five pounds

overcoat

faeces The rhyming component should be obvious

an effeminate male

a laxative, usually a strong one

vagina

pansy; derogatory term for a homosexual

to pawn something. This term was long popular in the North as well as in London

be amazed, surprised, enough to jump out of one's shoes; it can also mean to drop dead.

hock or pawn shop

a measure of Vat 69 whisky.

a part of Woolton which contains several convents and other Roman Catholic establishments.

pawned

someone designated to pawn something for you. Other terms for that: "bundle women," and "runners."

penis

lies

term for Scots

see "dolly peg" on this list. The Lancashire term "poss" means to push down clothes in water, or to pull them in soak before washing them. In Lancashire, a posser was a hollow cone-shaped instrument, having a smaller within it. It was fitted to a long perpindicular handle and used in a laundry for "possing" clothes, when in the water.

to become beserk about some irritation. The usage can be found throughout the United States and Britain. Latest rival in the States: ballistic.

an unskillful hunter's failure to hit anything as he fires at almost everything. Another meaning for Postman's Knock: a teen-age kissing game, where the meaning of life is the luck of the draw. The theme of randomness may be driving both meanings.

thick sliced potatoes in batter, deep fried

just potatoes on a poor family's table. Everyone then can point to them and call them something else, for instance, chicken. This helped those who had only a little imagine much. Terry Eagleton's description of "potatoes and point" in Ireland is a bit different, but no doubt related: if the person with the potato wanted salt but there was no salt, he or she would just point their potato at the dish in the middle of the table, where the salt was supposed to be, and imagine.

An Irish word which in Liverpool can refer to any pain killing liquor

to go exploring natural holes in the ground or to go caving.

person who is responsible for collecting the empty glasses in a pub

chair designed to aid elimination; training chair for a child to use a chamber pot. It can mean simply commode.

the effects of being poor. In Lancashire, "poverty knocker" was a sarcastic term for a hand-loom weaver.

No definition was supplied in the archived entry.

the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy, which featured an exhibition about venereal disease.

said of low grade, unhealthy looking produce

jam or any preserve, especially the tinned variety issued to the Armed Forces. In World War I, the troops were issued the "Posy Brand" of condensed milk, which had a flower on the label..

to hit someone using an improvised cosh made by concealing a PP-9 battery in the bottom of a sock

sometimes the word refers to the buttocks, but more frequently it means fraudulent and hypocritical.

a present

very rarely. The Preston Guild is a municipal celebration held since medieval times in Lancashire every twenty years.

derisory name given by Brutal street people to youths living in the Price Street area of Birkenhead

juvenile thieves

the proprietary name of a make of pressure lamp or stove, usually one which burns paraffin.

Princess Park, in Liverpool

childrens's game (called Relievo or Relalio) elsewhere. A variant of this is Kick the Can, or Nurky, or denio

a marriage certificate. One sense of this phrase is that it refers to a Protestant permit, which is obtained from a Registry rather than the Church, but I think that the sexual meaning of "prod" dominates the connotation now.

No definition was supplied in the archived entry.

No definition was supplied in the archived entry.

No definition was supplied in the archived entry.

a punch in the face

chinese lottery game

to be very badly frightened

the condition of pregnancy or simply: ther club

living on immoral earnings

arse

another name for Wet Nellie, the dessert made out of stale cake.

a pimp

very eccentric, insane. A person may be said to be "Alka Seltzers," which is Liverpudlian for Alzheimer's.

to be cavorting and running around naked

small freight trains which used to run under the Overhead Railway. In Lancashire, puffer or puffin' Billy was a child's name for a locomotive engine or a railway train.

a punch Shaw says this is of Irish origin. There is some interesting punning involved here. Pog means kiss in Irish. A punch is therefore an Irish kiss. At one point, a French kiss meant a very non-sexual head-butt.

genuine or excellent.

to have sex with a woman

to show displeasure

to go to the lav, the reference being to the water tank overhead with the hanging chain.

pass wind loudly. Spiegl thinks the term is an allusion to the nautical method of sounding audible warning on ships, but the allusion might as well be to artillery.

to make rude or obscene gestures, for instance when the Orange Lodges march by. In Lancashire, "Makkin-bacon" meant putting thethumb to the nose and extending the fingers. That action was sometimes accompanied by the words "bacon so thick."

a man with a fondness for young, sexually inexperienced girls.

getting a woman to have sex. "Pulling chicks" is a commonly used phrase. If one is prowling for women, one is "on the pull."

another word for posser, or dolly peg

male homosexual

Hindi for man who operated the fan with a rope. It's used derisively, as in "`es a punkwallah," and therefore has an unimportant role

a beggar

to make a bet

what prostitutes call their clients

form of packaged LSD

please be silent.

a girl

to prohibit the use or practice of something other

to kick a fallen opponent in the head, ribs, or abdomen

to try to gouge out an opponent's eyes

to seize a person by the coat-lapels and butt him in the face.