Wild words

He tells me that in the Malton area, starlings were not known as gippoes but were called gippies. In some parts of Yorkshire, starlings were named shepsters due to their habit of perching on the backs of sheep to hunt for ticks. Thrushes were also referred to as throllies, not throstles. I am sure there are many more local variations.

The same correspondent also produced a name for what we might describe as ordinary beer. It was slape. Many Yorkshire folk will associate this word with slipperiness, especially in winter when the roads and footpaths are slape with a covering of ice or even mud.

Slapewath is a name that features locally, literally meaning a slippery ford or watersplash.

My correspondent adds that when he was a student he went to a pub in Leeds and asked for a pint of slape but the name created a great deal of confusion.

I have checked my dialect reference books and other dictionaries without finding slape as an alternative name for beer. It is not even in my Scrabble dictionary, which is renowned for containing many unusual words.

So far as beer is concerned, it seems this drink did not carry that name until the 16th century when it meant ale that was brewed from hops. The earlier ale was based on malt, and this led to other ancient words such as ale-posset, which was a hot drink of ale and milk which was sweetened and spiced.

Alliker was an old word for vinegar, the term aigre meaning it was sour, i.e. sour wine. And an ale-draper was an alehouse-keeper.