To celebrate ‘dialect,’ the second artefact in the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre, I’ve written this short story using dialect referenced in Lawrence’s work. It’s read out by members of Lawrence Country, providing a blend of accents from the Notts/Derbyshire border. The video is edited together by Izaak Bosman, a talented lad from Wollaton who is currently doing a PhD at Cambridge.
I heard a raight racket outside and thought to mysen ‘what’s a gait now’. From mi window I gorped at a Bertie Willie arguing with a batchy gel. I decided to go out and see what wor happening and put mi coat on because it wor a bit nippy.
She looked like a raight besom to mi. The kind that would bezzle a week’s wages down her neck in one innings before blorting. But it was no wonder she turned to drink, given the chelp and bully-ragging she was getting from this young jockey.
Folk are always caffling and chuntering on our street. It’s usually summat to do with spending too much time with someone you shouldn’t be spending any time with which leads to a bit of colley-foglin’ . They should get it out their system before bobbling off down the aisle, if you ask mi.
But love makes a gaby of us all in the end, unless you’re a mean wizzen hearted stick. So, there’s no point tip callin’ on others. You can grizzle as much as you like and mard away the evening on your own, but we all know us would lief be with a lover than without. There in’t owt we can do to change it.
Anyway, that’s my harporth on the matter. I maun skedaddle. And remember mi words. Don’t be mingy with the ones you love. Life is too short to skinch on emotions. Sometimes you’ve got to be a bit slikey other times you need a drop o’ the lashins. Just do what works for yersen. Now, stop listening to me wafflin on and ger whoam.
The references in this dialect story all appear in Lawrence’s work. See below for the full list.
- ‘I’ll stand no more of your chelp’
- ‘He thinks himself slikey’
A Collier’s Friday Night
- ‘What am I to wesh mysen for?’
- ‘Tha s’lt go whoam, Willy, tha s’lt go whoam’
- ‘Tha’rt skinchin!’
- ‘You may back your life Lena an’ Mrs. Severn’ll be gorping, and that clat-fartin’ Mrs. Allsop’
A Sick Collier
- ‘They’re the mingiest set of ladylike snipe ever invented’
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
- ‘I’ll teach you, my jockey! Do you think I’m going to spend my life darning after your destructive little teeth!’
Rex
- ‘Three haporth o’ pap’
- ‘A mean, wizen-hearted stick’
- ‘I’d as lief be neighbours with a vixen’
- ‘An’ has ter eaten owt?’
- ‘There’s money to bezzle with if there’s money for nothin’ else’
Sons and Lovers
- ‘Eh, tha’rtamard-arsed kid’
The Collier’s Wife
- ‘Tha wor blortin’ an’ bletherin’ down at th’ office a bit an’ a mighty fool tha made o’ thysen’
- ‘Tha has a bit too much chelp an’ chunter’
- ‘An they would ha’ believed it, but for Hewett bully-raggin‘ Bettesworth ‘cos he knowed he was a chappil man’
- ‘Thinks I to myself, she’s after a town johnny, a Bertie-Willie an’ a yard o’ cuffs’
- ‘I thought tha’d bobbled off ter Manchester ter be i’ safety’
- ‘Serve her right, for tip callin‘ wi’m all those years’
- ‘What’s ‘er grizzlin’ about?’
- ‘What’s a-gait now?’
The Daughter-in-Law
- ‘Go then, sin’ tha maun’
- ‘Listen, I’m tellin’ thee summat’
The Drained Cup
- ‘If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to hear the housewife chuntering’
- ‘If you share nivver a drop o’ the lashins’
- ‘Seems yer doin’ yersen a bit o’ weshin’
The Lost Girl
- ‘Swimming, like – like a puff o’ steam wafflin’
- ‘It’s not many as can find in their heart to love a gaby like that’
- ‘To think of that brazen besom telling us to go home and go to bed’
- ‘Soft, batchy, sawney’
The Merry-go-Round
- ‘It’s raight for thaigh, said a fat fellow with an unwilling white moustache’
- ‘An’ I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between ‘em, worn’t there, Maggie?’
- ‘No – an’ mi mower says, Dun gie ‘t ‘im’
The White Peacock
- ‘He’d got a game on some- where- toffed himself up to the nines, and skedaddled off as brisk as a turkey- cock’
The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd
- ‘Then what art colley- foglin’ for?’
- ‘To think I should ‘ave ter ‘affle an’ caffle’
- ‘My gel, owt’U do for a man I’ the dark, Tha’s got it flat’
Whether or Not
- ‘Outside in the street there was a continual racket of the colliers and their dogs and children’
D.H. Lawrence: A Digital Pilgrimage 
