The day is lingering longer as January progresses. The darkling sky still has streaks of brightness at 4.30pm. It is growing lighter "by a cockerel's stride every day", according to my granddad. That phrase came from his granddad and he has passed it on to me.I can picture a cockerel striding across the farmyard but I am flummoxed as to the origins of linty. One of my sister's horses had been under the weather and I asked my mum how he was doing. "Oh," she said, "he's going like a linty." "Like a what?" I asked. "Like a linty," she said. "It was one of your nanna's phrases. Have you never heard that before?" I must confesses I haven't but equally, my mum doesn't know what a linty is - other than anything that goes like one is doing very well for itself.
My nanna was born and bred Edinburgh. In addition to being an amazing woman, she had a marvellous turn of phrase. "Where do you think you are, on your granny's yacht?" was a favourite, and some poor souls were often "Up the creek without a paddle". Latterly, she would point at people (usually out of rolled down car windows on baking hot summer days) and exclaim: "The things you see when you havenae got a gun!"
As a child, I wanted to know what she meant when she described my uncle's soon to be ex-wife as a "fornicating bitch". This was one of my many questions that would elicit the reply from whichever adult was in earshot: "I'll tell you when you're 16." I wish I'd written all of those queries down in a book. But it didn't matter: miraculously, I think I knew what most of them meant once I'd reached the age of consent. I believe that's what will happen when I die - suddenly, I will understand everything.
My mum is of the opinion that if you learn something for yourself, you are less likely to forget it. "Look it up in the dictionary," was often her response when I asked for definitions or spellings. And of course, she was right. It's just a shame I can't find a definition of a linty that fits the phrase.
27 comments:
Linty is an entirely new one on me. I snatch at others' luscious phrases that slip through my dull brain, only to be remembered at the appropriate moment. But can I recall them later? No. Which makes me VERY impressed that you can and do.
Ooh, my mother (from Tyneside) says "linty" too. Must ask her what it means. She also says "Stotious" (pronounced stoshus) which I think means drunk. I also think that's from her Irish side but with Geordies, you just never know. Great stuff this language lark.
Linty? Never heard of it over here in the west. Fascinating.
My nan used to say that about the cockerel's stride!
What I could never work is why she used to say, on rainy/cloudy days, "is there enough blue to make a sailor a pair of trousers?"
Well, surely it would depend on the size/age of the sailor, if he favoured bootleg, flares or drainpipes.....
Never heard linty or the lovely cockerel's stride, but the sailor's pants I've heard since I was small.
Oh and in case you're wondering, in Cape Town pants meant trousers, not underpants.
My favourite word [which doesn't appear to be listed in Chambers] is 'discombobulated' - or maybe I am not spelling it correctly..
I'll ask my father.....
M&M dear, we have the phrase 'fornicating bitch' in London too, I don't know what it means in the North wast but in Islington it's a cocktail
..'on your granny's yacht' is one to relish. Thanks so much.
Oh - I love the cockerels stride. online dictionary suggests linty is "a fibrous coat of thick convoluted hairs borne by cotton seeds that yields the cotton staple". But I don't suppose the context works. My dad used to refer to a hissy fit as a ''wobbly''. wonder if linty and wobbly approximate same thing?
I know a journalist who was once interviewing a Saudi minister. He asked her, "What's the difference between fornication and adultery?"
never heard of linty before. phrases do make me laugh, when l moved up north, there were so many very strange words and phrases to understand!
Someone out there must know about the linty. Maybe it's a historical reference? Fascinating stuff.
Is it the same as going like the clappers, and where on earth does that phrase come from?
Hmm. Mrs B uses a variation of the blue Sky thing... "Enough to patch a Dutchman's trousers"
I can report that "Linty" is definitely not from Wales, as you would expect really.
Some of my favourite phrases come from my nana and granddad, too, although some of them veer towards the racist! A room that's shamefully messy is often described as either "Paddy's market" or "a Chinese laundry"...
Isn't it wonderful that the days are getting longer?
Here in Guernsey it gets darker in winter later than in southern England. But in summer we are about 20 minutes behind.
The latest wheeze from our oddball politicians is that Guernsey should adopt Central European Time. About 80% of the people are against it.
"A cockerel's stride" - that's lovely. I will remember this. In comparison with the migration of the sun these smallscale steps show just how miniscule is the daily progression towards midsummer.
I live in the North East (Gateshead) and I first heard the expression 'linty' when I started working even farther North, in Ashington.
Over the last decade or so I've since heard it many a time and it's virtually always used to describe someone who's working too hard.
I remember eventually asking one of my older colleagues who hailed from Blythe (needles to say, an avid Spartan) and he explained that it originates from "Them blerks y' get in Bangkok that run a'rund pullin' taxi carriages aall day as th' cannit afford a herse [horse] like".
I doubted the origin at first, but shortly afterwards I was in the charming Blakelaw Working Man's Club on what I assumed was a sunny Saturday afternoon and there was only one barman serving the entire 'lounge' area, which I'd guess consisted of at least 30 seasoned (some would say picked) drinkers from Newcastle's infamous West End. The poor barman was sweating proverbial buckets trying to satisfy the thirsty clientele and whilst I was queueing at the bar (as we do in such venues up North) more than one person was heard making reference to the barman and saying "Look at that poor bugger, he's sweating like a linty-man!".
Ever since then I've always associated the term 'linty' as describing a person who's grafting ever so slightly harder than they really should be.
Hi there, I'm from Aberdeen and yesterday I said to my husband that our wee boat was going like a linty - he says that all the sayings I come out with are made up by my mum! I always thought a linty was a bird!!! No idea why.
Another east coast word - swicking - cheating. Smacharie ( is that how you spell it?) for lots of sweeties and yummy things.
It should be sing like a Linty, a Linty is a Linnet, a small songbird, often kept as a caged pet in Victorian Britain because of the sweetness of it's song. I'm in West Lothian in Scotland and regularly hear people saying run like a Linty, eat like a Linty, almost anything like a Linty, all wrong, singing is the only thing Linty's do exceptionally well.
'Going like a linty' in Glasgow, where I grew up in the laste 50s/early 60s, was to do something as fast as possible. When I was a kid it was used to describe a Leery [gas lamplighter] as he ran from close [common entry to tenement flats] to close lighting the gas-mantles that still lit the spaces.
Derivation assumed to be from Linnet, the small [and fast-flying] songbird.
I've heard snoring like a linty.
JB
When I was about nine years old my Dad told me to be quiet and listen to the Linty's song. He was referring to the ascending Sky Lark. I'm now seventy two and living in the Orkney Islands and just heard my first Linty song of the year. Spring is here.
Aww, Ivy, that's lovely - and fantastic to find out what a linty actually is.
Heard it all my life, and I live in the west of Scotland. Smokes like a lintie, runs like a lintie, etc, but I do believe it is a bird
‘Going like a linty tucker’ = moving very quickly but I don’t know from whom I learnt this. Highlands of Scotland.
It is the little bird the Linnet people of Scotland use it all the time mostly out of context but I always associated it with singing a favorite of mine was when someone was called to give evidence and people would say "He sang like a Linty" meaning he told on everyone else to save his own skin like singing like a budgie really, as the budgie replaced the linnet bird as a cadged pet the context of Linty changed to all kinds of things sweating like a linty running like a linty eat like a linty etc, I think people may have thought it was something related to a prisoner or convict since the bird was also caged but that's just my 2 pence worth lol.
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