Smoggie Explained
Smoggie is a colloquial term used to refer to people from the Teesside area of North East England. The term is also used to describe the local accent and dialect spoken in the area. The term relates to the area's notoriety for its high levels of pollution from local industry, which resulted in a thick smog that often blanketed the region. Despite popular belief that the term originates from the 1960s, its earliest recorded use is in the 1990s, as visiting football supporters from other areas of the country began to refer to the locals as "smog monsters", which was later shortened to "smoggies".[1] Despite its origins as a term of derision, "Smoggie" has since been adopted as a term of pride by many residents of Teesside.
History
Originally, this was a term of abuse for supporters of Middlesbrough F.C. coined by their Sunderland A.F.C. counterparts. The name was meant to refer to the heavy air pollution once produced by the local petrochemical industry,[2] and from Dorman Long.[3] Though, at first, Smoggie was used as a pejorative term, it has become an example of reappropriation with many people now proudly calling themselves 'Smoggies'.
Current usage
Primarily directed at people from Teesside, 'Smoggies' is often used to describe the areas of Teesside with a noticeable amount of industry.[4] The term was referred to by Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP, Tom Blenkinsop, in the House of Commons, and was recorded in Hansard, in July 2011.[5] Smoggies has occasional use as a nickname for Middlesbrough F.C.[6] [5] [7] In 2013 the Cleveland Art Society organised a major exhibition of the works of local artists entitled Smoggies Allowed in an Art Gallery.[8]
Characteristics
Due to the rapid growth of Teesside in the 19th century, Smoggie represents an example of new dialect formation and was influenced by Northumbrian, Yorkshire and Hiberno-English.[9] Despite its mixed origins, it is considered part of the urban North East dialect area, forming the 'Southern Urban North-Eastern English' dialect region including Hartlepool and Darlington.[10]
Phonology
- Like most North East dialects, the definite article is always full and never reduced to t' as in the Yorkshire dialect.
- Final unstressed /i/ is a tense [i] rather than a lax [ɪ]. This mirrors other North Eastern dialects and contrasts with Yorkshire English.
- H-dropping is common in informal speech. This is considered unusual among most North East dialects but is shared with Mackem.
- /l/ is typically more velarised than in other North East dialects.[10]
- Square–nurse merger: the vowel in word, heard, nurse, etc. is pronounced in the same way as in square, dare for many speakers. This is pronounced as /[ɛː]/.[11]
- The phoneme pronounced as //aɪ// (as in prize) may become a monophthong pronounced as /[ɑː]/ before a voiced consonant. For example, five becomes pronounced as /[fɑːv]/ (fahve), prize becomes pronounced as /[pʰɹɑːz]/ (prahze). This does not occur before voiceless consonants, so "price" is pronounced as /[pʰɹaɪs]/.
- The FACE vowel is typically [eː], or sometimes more rarely [ɪə] or [ɜː].
- The GOOSE vowel is typically [ɪʉ] or [ʉː].
- The START vowel is typically more fronted than in upper North East varieties, thus park is typically pronounced [paːk].
- In conservative forms of the dialect make and take are pronounced mek and tek (pronounced as /[ˈmɛk]/ and pronounced as /[ˈtɛk]/). These contrast with the Sunderland and Durham variants mak and tak but are counterintuitively shared with broad Geordie.[10]
Vocabulary
- Smoggie is characterised by a relative lack of Northumbrianisms in comparison to Geordie, Mackem, and Pitmatic (upper North East dialects). Markedly North-Eastern forms such as divvent or dinnet for "don't" and gan for "go" are not found on Teesside.[9]
- However, a limited number of Northumbrian words are still found in the dialect, such as bairn and canny.
- The emphatic interjection well aye corresponds to the upper North East whey aye or Scots och aye.[12]
- ’oway or ’owee corresponds to Geordie howay or Mackem haway. On Teesside the h is always dropped.
See also
Bibliography
- Book: Williams. Ann. Kerswill. Paul. Foulkes. Paul. Docherty. Gerard. Dialect levelling: change and continuity in Milton Keynes, Reading and Hull. Urban voices. Accent studies in the British Isles.. 1999. London. Arnold. 141–162. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/linguistics/staff/kerswill/pkpubs/WilliamsKerswill1999UrbanVoices.pdf. https://web.archive.org/web/20120916171839/http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/linguistics/staff/kerswill/pkpubs/WilliamsKerswill1999UrbanVoices.pdf. 16 September 2012.
External links
Notes and References
- Pearce . Michael . 'Not quite a Geordie': the folk-ethnonyms of north-east England . Nomina . 2014 . 37 . 22–24 .
- Web site: 'I was made in Middlesbrough'. Shaun . Harley . . 16 October 2007 . 2 October 2013.
- Web site: Dictionary of Middlesbrough and Teesside Accent Dialect and Slang. Love Middlesbrough - Middlesbrough Borough Council . 2012–2014 . 5 July 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181116162102/http://visitmiddlesbrough.com/visitor-info/smogtionary-slang-dictionary#S . 16 November 2018.
- Web site: Geordie: A regional dialect of English . . 2 October 2013.
- Web site: Teesside MP uses the word "smoggie" in Parliament speech . . 11 July 2011 . 29 September 2013.
- Web site: How is Britain coping with the recession? - Middlesbrough - Smoggies steel themselves . Dan . Hancox . . 10 September 2009 . 2 October 2013.
- Web site: Maximo Park fear for footy teams . . 22 April 2009 . 29 September 2013.
- Web site: Exhibition showcases work of Teesside artists . . 1 June 2013 . 2 October 2013.
- Book: Kerswill, Paul . July 23, 2018 . Wright . Laura . Southern English Varieties Then and Now . De Gruyter . 8–38 . Dialect formation and dialect change in the Industrial Revolution: British vernacular English in the nineteenth century . 9783110577549.
- Book: Beal . Joan C. . Urban North-eastern English: Tyneside to Teesside (Dialects of English) . 2012 . Edinburgh University Press .
- Handbook of Varieties of English, p. 125, Walter de Gruyter, 2004
- Web site: TeesSpeak: Dialect of the Lower Tees Valley . Lower Tees Dialect Group . https://web.archive.org/web/20121001170610/http://www.communigate.co.uk/ne/teesspeak/page16.phtml . 12 July 2021. 1 October 2012 .