Cruise Stop--Newcastle UK

If I can't be on a ship cruising port to port, I can at least be on the internet surfing port to port. One of the ports I looked into was Newcastle in the norther part of England. It is our first stop on a cruise we booked for next year. Of course I always manage to find bunny trails to travel down and a description of Newcastle on one site included the information that it has a distinct regional dialect called Geordie. Of course I was off and checking it out.

Geordie (pronounced Jordy) refers to the people who live in the Newcastle and Tyneside area in Northeast England. It is said to be the most difficult dialect to understand. Hmmm. I thought Cockney was difficult. The Geordie dialect is not just a distinct accent. It actually has its own vocabulary and not just the usual differences we see between our American words vs. English words (think sweater = jumper). There are several interesting words I found.

• bait - food or a snack taken to work
• bobby dazzler - someone who is conceited and a show off
• breeks - trousers
• gan - to go (C'mon we'll gan doon the pub.)
• monkey's blood - raspberry sauce for ice cream
• wazzock - imbecile or jerk
• whisht - hush

Hoyahamma owaheah is not a Japanese company but "throw a hammer over here."

A stottie is a dense doughy bread.

Looks like we could have quite a time should we get lost and need direction. It reminds me of our trip to Ireland where we ended up in an area that is trying to preserve the old Irish Gaelic and many of the residents only speak that language/dialect. We had an old gentleman tip his hat to us as we sipped tea at a small cafe. He stopped, rattled off his Gaelic, smiled at us and went on his way. We smiled back and nodded our heads. I have no idea what was said or if our response was even appropriate. Ah, the fun of traveling.