Canny lass

Bede in Old English = Baeda or Beda Bede in Latin = Beda It's the ing that puts a damper on the theory as it means belonging to. But it's interesting so don't give up hope!. Bede himself has never noted the exact whereabouts of his birth. He says only "on the lands of the monastry" (meaning Monkwearmouth) However, monasteries owned vast amounts of land so it could have been anywhere. Somewhere on the internet I've also read Sunderland and a Place called Tyne.

OR if you want the black sticky type try this: 8 oz plain flour 2 oz sugar 1 tsp mixed spice 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda 1-2 tsp ground ginger 4 oz lard or butter 6 oz black treacle 2 oz golden syrup 1/4 pint of milk 1 egg Set the oven to 300-325f,150-170c or gas mark 2. Grease and line a 7" Square cake tin. Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl. Put the lard/butter, black treacle and syrup into a saucepan and heat until the fat melts. Cool slightly and add to the dry ingredients. Warm the milk in the same saucepan. Pour over the ingredients in the bowl and beat thoroughly. Lastly, beat in the egg. Pour into the tin and bake in the middle of the oven 1½ hours but test after an hour. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool - preferably under the up turned tin. The longer you can keep it in an airtight container Before eating the stickier and better it gets. I keep mine a couple of Days Before cutting. Let's know how you get on!

Thank you Eggy! I'll definitely be giving this a go!

I've just found a wonderful book on the Internet. It was published as an academic thesis in 1920 and has somehow ended up in the library of Cornell University USA. Despite its age the contents are valid even today. Over a period of 8 years the authors, Alan Mawer M.A. and his professor, Joseph Cowen,(both Durham University) researched the Place names of Northumberland and Durham. This is what they discovered about the changing name of Bedlington. 1050 Bedlingtun 1085 Bethlingtun 1104 - 1108 Betlingtun 1150 Bellingtona 1170 Bethlingtone, Betligtun 1175 Betlingetun 1203 Bellingeton 1228 Bellington 1291 Bedelinton 1315 Bedelington 1335 Bellington 1507 Bedlyngton There was an Old English version "Bedeling(a) tiin of Bedel or of his sons. Bedel is a diminutive of Beda". Mawer goes on to say that those Spellings with double L are probably due to an assimilation that never became fully established. Those Spellings with tl are due to A.N. influence (sorry I don't know what that is as I haven't found Mawer's list of abbreviations too helpfull). And, finally, those Spellings with thl are due to a common interchange of dl in certain Anglian Words.

Wat AMA Waitin For Willicks And Mussels At Wades Fish shop Warkworth And Morpeth Amateur Whale Fishing

I say the same thing Maggie. Bedders is a veritable mine of information.

Foxy Definitely NOT!

It's that Little Word 'for' that makes it confusing Foxy. It's a politicians favourite because it has so many different meanings. That makes it easy for them to wriggle out of things when the going gets tough. That sentence can be read in several different ways. What they want the reader to read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver to the benefit of Bedlington. What the reader should read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver on behalf of Bedlington. The failure to use the direct- and indirect objects (what's being delivered and to whom) only adds to the confusion. If we now add those the sentence could read: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver, on behalf of Bedlington, all Money intended for Bedlington (direct object), to the people of Ashington (indirect object). Isn't syntax wonderful! Just imagine what could happen if they learned to use the Word to!

If you find it fascinating you'll love a recent book by Barry Hobson Latrinae et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World. There you'll also find that single toilets were not at all uncommon in Roman times. The Word latrinae means just 'single toilet' while foricae is the latin Word for the multi-seaters - as Hobson calls them. Single toilets abound in roman ruins even today (probably because they were built like brick sh*t houses).

Have you been at that Sherry again Maggie!

Netty may not be native to Northumberland. I've Heard it used in both Yorkshire and Wales - but there can be lots of explanations for that. When we try to decipher the meaning of Words today it's all too easy to break the Word down into its modern day morphemes (Components of meaning). However, if we want to get anywhere near the truth we have to go back to the origins of the Word and look at the morphemes as they were when the Word was taken into the language. To give you an example let's take 'Bedlington'. If we break it down into modern day morphemes we'd get Bed,ling and ton and we can read whatever we like into that - hypothesizing wildly we could get something as rediculous as a resting Place for Heavy fish. If we break it down into old English morphemes (700-1100 BC) we get something quite different - Bedl, ing and ton. Then our hypothesis could also be very different. For example, the 'farmstead belonging to Bedla'. Bedla was a well used name during the period, ing was known to be a form of the genitive and ton was a very small plot of land. Language Changes all the time and ton as in Bedlington is, today, most often given to mean Town but when it first came into the English langauge, as tun, it simply meant an enclosure, a garden, or a yard. Over the following centuries it Went on to mean the houses and Buildings on that piece of land. Later its meaning changed to encompass the inhabitants and even later it changed again to include the administrative system in use with that particular piece of land, it's dwellings and it's inhabitants. A similar thing happened with the English Word cabin. If we trace it's origins we find that it has had all sorts of meanings - many of them now obsolete. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology,it started out as the Latin capanna/cavanna (spellings with -in appeared first in the 16th Century) and it meant, among many other things, cave. By the 14th Century it was being used in the meaning of a ships compartment.and in the 15th Century a rude habitation. First in the 17th Century was it being used when referring to that which we today call a cabin . In the case of our beloved 'netty' and its etymology, much depends on when it came into the English language or one of its many dialects. The net theory, I find hard to accept - but don't rule it out. Earth closets have been around for centuries. So has net. However, I'm doubtful if the two entities were ever to be found in one establishment. They belong to two different social classes, unless of course the Word 'netty, is relatively new. My own theory is still a loan Word from Latin, possibly via French, followed by abbreviation - in this case initial clipping (using the last part of the Word to serve as the whole). Just one Little question - why would anybody add a diminutive ending to the Word net?

Nothing to do with nets I'm afraid. The diminutive suffix in latin is 'ette'. It Changes with noun gender and becomes 'etti'.The diminutuve, as I'm sure you know, implies the meaning 'little' - so cabinetti, Little cabin.

Pete, the idea with the privacy screens in India is to preserve wömen's modesty but equally so to prevent men getting overly excited at the sight of a woman - as they do! So they are about keeping things in the dark, as it were, and preventing undue excitement. I Think I might be beginning to see a Connection here.

Netty = cabinetti. The Roman's name for closet.

Thanks Malcolm, it's Interesting to see that this Word stems from the screen used in the preservation of women's modesty. albeit in Turkey and not in India where I first came across it. I still can't see any Connection with it's use in British politics.

There was also the occasional 'cloot roond the lugs'. They weren't so nice!

I've Heard that name as well but I've no idea what a clooty mat is. Clooty dumplings I remember only too well!

Now that sounds more likely Bayardm. Thanks.

I saw a lot of it in India! Lovely silk or marble screens that hide women from men in public Buildings but I can't see any Connection here.

Just had Another Think about 'cleaky mats'. Could wor Jackie be talking about 'clicky mats'? I remember two sorts of mat making in my home. Proggy mats, using small 'clippings' and a 'progger', and clicky mats using long strips of cloth and a special tool that knotted the strip to the backing - usually hessian.

Flaas - flaws maybe?

Not to be confused with tjebble! The kitchen table.

I don't know about the mining term Cyevule but when you write it down as kjebble (Which we pronounced as 'shebble') it means 'chat'. A canny kjebble, a canny crack they both meant a good chat. My mother could also use it to us kids when we were arguing - stop your kjebble/kjebbling this minute!

Strong Words are great Words - when they eminate from strong feelings!

I remember it Maggie. There was Always a 'ging -beer plant' standing on the floor in our pantry. Very hush hush! It smelled like rotten eggs but the end Product tasted very nice. It was a bit like a sour dough. it had to be fed and divided once a week but obviously there was no flour involved. It was fed with sugar and ground ginger and there must have been yeast involved in the first 'plant'. I've been trying to get a recipe for this for years so I hope somebody here can help.