26 September 2020

Vocabulary

Onion bhajis with wild garlic
Yesterday we met up for lunch with  Stewart's parents at "The Rising Sun" in Nether Green - another suburb of this Yorkshire city. Not  "Love in the Time of Cholera" but "Lunch in the Time of  Covid". Masks? Check. Hand Sanitiser? Check? Contact details provided? Check.

We were given disposable copies of the Autumn menu. Shirley said, "Where's Heresy?" I think she was imagining a fishing village on the coast of Northumberland or Suffolk. I  was somewhat puzzled until I read the text for the second "main meal" on the menu; "Heresy battered cod with golden handcooked chips and mushy peas". The mistake made me laugh out loud. What the pub's chef had  meant to write was "Heritage battered cod", not "Heresy" which of course principally means "belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine".

I thought there might be some one-horse town in America called Heresy but apparently there isn't. Heresy, South Carolina or Idaho would make a good setting for a scary film with ghouls, zombies and suchlike. And of course the residents would all enjoy battered cod.

Fishermen of Heresy (by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe)

Another menu item was  - Vegetarian burger with bhaji and paneer etc.. Making a silly joke, I asked the ginger bearded barman/waiter if it was an "argy-bargy"? I got absolutely no response from him and it turned out that he had never heard of the expression "argy-bargy" - sometimes spelt "argie-bargie". It means a kind of ruckus, argument or noisy dispute . Oh, and if you didn't know, that word "bhaji" is from the Indian subcontinent and it means "a small flat cake or ball of vegetables, fried in batter."

The expression "argy-bargy" has been around in Great Britain for more than a hundred years and all four of us at the table were astonished that the young man had not encountered it. When it comes to language, it's so easy to make wrong assumptions like that. I am sure that the young man habitually uses some words or expressions that I have never heard of. No doubt he was muttering them behind his spotted coronavirus mask when we walked out.

We left him a £5 tip. After all, we were in the pub for three hours  and in case you imagined otherwise, I only drank one pint of beer, called curiously "Daily Bread" by the Abbeydale Brewery from this fair northern city.

33 comments:

  1. My OH used to embarrass me years ago by asking for " tea for two please" in a silly squeaky voice and he did get some very funny looks from young waitresses! No idea where it originated.....probably the Goon Show or something like that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't know what OH meant Frances. You are so cool to be able to use textspeak like that! I bet your OH is pleased with his SB.

      (SB = Sexy Bird)

      Delete
  2. Frame yourself. Take your coat off or you won't feel the benefit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is that what the fisherman is saying?

      Delete
    2. Maybe the word gansey instead of coat.

      Delete
  3. Apparently Hooliganism is named after a notorious East End Irish family called the Hooligans who liked a lot of "bovver".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have taught me something today you young hooligan!

      Delete
  4. Do you think there is a shelter for battered cod?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. It is generally known as - my belly.

      Delete
  5. I don't even know what an OH is, much less an argy-bargy.
    I just looked up OH. I see- other half. I thought it meant Old Husband.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course there are plenty of differences between American English and English English and both are forever evolving - which is pretty exciting.

      Delete
    2. He is getting on a bit!!

      Delete
  6. Well, I have never heard of "argy-bargy "either. Now the Hersey-heresy one takes a keen spotter to catch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ask The Micro Manager about "argy-bargy" if some of her Englishness remains.

      Delete
  7. You'll be pleased to know I knew what argy-bargy was. I grew up with a word (jolly-Molly) that was very much used used in our house. When I started at university, I told people to put any rubbish in the jolly Molly. Nobody had any idea what I was on about. It turns out it was the name of the company that made pedal bins and my family had taken on that name to mean a pedal bin. Embarrassment all round.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For a moment I thought your nickname was Jolly Molly but I do not wish to expand upon that thought for fear of causing offence.

      Delete
  8. I wonder if "heresy" was an auto-correct mistake. (Was the menu typed or handwritten?) If someone said argy-bargy to me, I'd have no idea what they were talking about. It's not something I've ever heard in London! Not that I am yet an expert on the many dialects of England.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Argy-bargy" is not an exclusively a northern expression - it is used throughout Britain - but in that moment with the bearded waiter I realised that it is probably an expression that is fading away. You could well be right about auto-correct but I don't think so. If you mis-spell "heritage" when typing you don't get "heresy" back.

      Delete
  9. How are you getting on with the vicar these days? I expect he was happy to let you pay the tip out of the wad you found on the floor. Mind you it should have been at least a tenner for four of you in there for three hours but then he would leave it to you and observe in silence what you left.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I get on fine with the vicar though we never broach such subjects as God or Christianity. He is a good bloke and surprisingly practical for a man of the cloth. He has climbed half the Scottish "Munros" and hoped to climb the rest in retirement but he has a very painful knee that may need surgical intervention - unless of course there is a miracle!

      Delete
  10. Never heard of argy-bargy or argie-bargie or argle-bargle, but I figured out OH in about two seconds flat on my own. I am, as you say, brilliant (but only in certain areas).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am proud to have been the one who introduced you to the term "argy-bargy" and hope that you will use this helpful expression in everyday communication. Some "argy-bargy" with your telephone line provider seems in order.

      Delete
  11. "Argy-bargy" is a new one on me! We have lots of expressions around here that leave newcomers mystified, I'm sure.

    How is Frances getting along? I guess everyone is excited for the arrival of the baby!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She is getting along fine Jennifer. Thanks for asking. Now 26 weeks pregnant. Time marches on.

      Delete
  12. Good grief. I had to look up argy-bargy, pronounced, apparently, with the j or soft g sound and also argle-bargle, which it is taken from, which is apparently pronounced with a hard g sound! Then I read all the comments and now my head is completely muddled. I'd better have a cuppa joe to clear it up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There will be some argy-bargy in The Senate about the president's pick for The Supreme Court!

      Delete
  13. Interestingly - one of the last heresy trials in Toronto involved a minister of the church I attend. This took place around 1876.
    http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macdonnell_daniel_james_12E.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like the REverend Macdonnell was a good man but did he enjoy battered cod?

      Delete
  14. I was thinking that argie-bargie was a shortened form of arguing and bargaining. Then I read Hilltop’s statement that it had a j or soft g sound instead of a hard g, and my theory went out the window. But it fits argle-burgle. What think you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand that the term was first coined in Scotland and that the "argy" part of it was indeed derived from "argue" or "argument". Your idea about "bargaining" makes sense to me but I have not seen such a suggestion before.

      Delete
  15. I go by the feel of words 'argie-bargie' has a harsh tone, which maybe explains its meaning. Funnily enough 'Argument Yard' in Whitby had nothing to do with arguing but was the name of the person who owned a house down there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have seen that yard sign in Whitby Thelma. Thanks for that tidbit of knowledge.

      Delete
  16. When F arrived in London (and lived afloat there) she had friend who lived in a barge called Argie. ' seemed a perfectly legitimate thing to call a barge. It wasn't a craft our plastic boat was in any condition to argue with.

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

Most Visits