You've got me drooling now, thinking of cream teas...

only cos yellow bellies don't put prices on anything, charging what the buyer may be worth rather than what the product is worth

7
The monkey and ponies stump me so I stick with 20/50/10 quid.

?

You're younger than I thought. Bob was a common expression for shilling. I believe it later became worth 5 pence, and at one time you could actually buy something with that amount eg a bag of chips or a chocolate bar.

Strange phraseology.

Did English people really ask to borrow 20 bob?

I for one dont think so.

Ah - you weren't pretending not to remember the term Bob! Just trying to insinuate I wasn't English. Most odd!
Maybe 10 bob would be closer to the mark - people would surely have just said a pound or quid instead of 20 bob? There again I distinctly remember people talking about guineas instead of pounds (and I know they were not exactly the same - wasn't a guinea one pound and one shilling?), as if there were an aversion to talking about pounds. Why? I have no idea, and maybe I was just imagining it...

My mother, from Norwich, was horrified upon moving to the Midlands to hear a toilet referred to as 'the Bog'.

My mother-in-law was Black Country good and proper. She was 'starved' when she was cold and 'clammed' when she was hungry. And something good was 'bostin'.

Round our way (on the north-west edge of the West Midlands conurbation), we have a phrase 'going round the Wrekin', which means taking the long way round to get to somewhere - the Wrekin being a large hill in nearby Shropshire.

And I now have a Twirly Pass - an OAP Bus Pass - called that because Pensioners get on the bus before 0930 and say 'Am I too early?' (say it quickly).

And I will always remeber a young friend of ours, a nice, friendly and polite Everton supporter, becoming a different person when referring to Liverpool FC and calling them Red Shites.

What a funny post, I know about twirlys too, but it is funny to read it.

In the area of Lancashire I come from, teacakes have currants and the soft ones are barmcakes. I was once sitting in a bar near St Paul's Bay in Lindos, Rhodes when a woman at a nearby table asked the waiter "Hast tha got any barmcakes, lad?". Mystified look from waiter. "Tha knows, baaarmcakes" (louder). By this time we were in fits - I don't think she ever did get her barmcakes.

I read on the Manchester Evening News recently that a local IT firm had designed a new iPhone app to translate Wiganese into English after they took on a new employee and the staff couldn't understand a word he said. Example - in most areas of the North a brew would mean a cup of tea but where I come from, a brew is a hill.

They have barmcakes in Coronatiion Street. I always wondered what they were.

We have baircon and gray pays in the Black Country. (Bacon and Grey Peas). My m-i-l cooked them beautifully. Mouth watering. Not being Black Country myself (Midlands, but not Black Country), I don't have the touch.

http://www.blackcountrypubs.com/blac...y%20dishes.htm

In Bristol/Somerset they say 'cuppy down' meaning crouch or squat.

"Ooer! I don't half need a wee!"

"Why don't you go and cuppy down behind that hedge".

I won't link to it now, but there was an hilarious site that had "Windows for Geordies".

Edit: Changed my mind. I will link to it

Windaz Too Thoosand

Never heard that one near Taunton, but my dad - Frome born, used to refer to his 'picnic equipment' (the type we women don't have) and a Debn/Somerset border farmer friend of ours once nearly had a visit from me as a girl when he said he was off behind the shed to feed the pony.......

Black Country Ten Commandments:

(from this site: http://theologicalscribbles.blogspot...k-country.html)

GOD’S BOSTIN’ RULES:

1. “Ar bin the Lord yaar God, yow cor ave ova daft un’s befower me”
2. “Dow put stuff befower God”
3. “Yow cor tek the naame o’ the Lord yaah God in vain”
4. “Git yaself to Sunday meeting ay it”
5. “Honor ya dad un ya mom”
6. “Yow cor kill con ya”
7. “Yow woe av it off with sumone elses missus/bloke”
8. “No pinchin’”
9. “Dow mek out ya muckers dun it”
10. “Dow get jealous of ya maates stuff”