PLODGING up to the oxters in dialectic clarts, recent columns have attempted to refresh a feeling for Geordie patter (or patois, as they say in Darras Hall).

From another heavy mail bag, therefore, we are particularly grateful to Richard Jones in Darlington, not only for the information that the Alloa Brewery in Scotland produces a seasonal ale called Tattie Howker, but for exhuming an old joke in time for the Winter Olympics.

Geordie's on a quiz show. "Right, Geordie," says the question master. "Name a card game."

"Ice hockey," says Geordie.

"Ice hockey's not a card game," says the question master.

"Hadaway," says Geordie, "it's the cardest game aa knaa...."

STILL the back-crack burgeons, not least thanks to Mrs E Miler in Richmond who sends two more Scott Dobson books - "my husband was a great admirer".

Histry o' the Geordies traces the race from its earliest North-Eastern roots - "they had been deported from Scandinavia by the Oslo Peace and Purity League"; Advanced Geordie Palaver, published in 1970, notes that Larn Yersel' Geordie - "the publishing sensation of the year" - had by that time sold 61,000 copies at five bob apiece and that the Hist'ry had already sold 30,000, same price.

Since it's A-level stuff, the column offers five phrases by way of examination paper. Four or more correct translations and readers may consider themselves naturalised.

A: Aafancytekkinhor abackathgasworks.

B: Wormans badwi thebeor.

C: (At school). Whenahsez lowp yelowps.

D: Worbellaz in theclub agyen

E: Ahdeenowt butbowk.

Answers somewhere below. The spellcheck has just vanished up its own lexicography.

NONE of this pleasant plagiarism would be possible without the tacit approval of Scott Dobson's widow Ros, now living beside the Red Seaside but not just at the moment plodging in it.

"A bit too cold for a coward like me," she says, "and in any case the Jordanians, about half a mile across the bay, and the Egyptians, three miles away, might have something to say about it.

"Even Saudi is nearby, and I've a good view of them all.".

It's still very dry, mind. "Winter here is mostly sunny days and hardly any rain at all. It rains so little that kids in the school opposite don't run inside, they run outside to try to catch the drops."

Ros flies off today for a five week holiday cum missionary expedition to Australia, not the sort of unguarded information which normally the Echo would publish. In Israel, however, she may consider herself safe.

STILL it flows. In Ingleton church after evensong, a lady says how much she's loving it all; Martin Snape in Durham writes that he's not enjoyed such audible mirth in ages; Mr B Langford in Richmond - another from beyond the Great Divide - wonders, as last week's column did, about the word "haway."

Could it, he asks, have been from the Roman greeting "Ave", meaning to greet. "No doubt," he says, "it would have been copied by the local Brits."

John Fraser Maughan in Newcastle - where doubtless he answers to Maffen - recalls (in Geordie) a wartime RAF service when he encountered a fellow Geordie over char and wads in the Forces canteen.

Granted seven days compassionate to mark the imminent arrival of his first born, John's new friend found the time up and the bairn still in situ.

Since the doctor wouldn't give him another note, the lad went back home, put the kettle on, took his boot off, poured the water over his foot and got another week.

Ah, says John, no greater love hath man than that.

MOSTLY, however, last week's column concerned itself with howking - as in howkin' and spittin', several readers have pointed out, though Mr Ron Hails in Hartlepool is (of course) more genteel and suggests the word means "to clear one's throat."

In particular we were howking turnips. In Hartlepool they're sometimes called "sniggers", says Ron - he probably meant "snaggers", but it;s not so great a laughing matter - and sometimes "tungies". "A youth with a round head would be known, rather unkindly, as 'tungie heed'."

From Witton Gilbert, near Durham, Alan Wetherell offers the requested distinction between a turnip and a swede.

The swede - brassica napus - is larger and coarser than the turnip, mostly of uniform purple and cream and mainly used as cattle and sheep fodder.

The turnip - brassica rapa - is much smaller and with a coarser leaf and is almost exclusively grown for the table.

"I trust that this clarifies the position," says Alan. Top brassica, of course.

IAN Andrew, Methodist local preacher, also noted the reference in last week's column to the Old Testament book of Joel: "I will drive the northerners from your midst."

The word "northern", he says learnedly, occurs over 200 times in the Old Testament but only twice in the New.

The classic quote, however - "taken completely out of context" - is from Acts 27:14: "A very strong wind, the one called the North-Easterner, blew down...."

A summary of February's weather forecast, perhaps? Or something to do with Geordie on the turnips?

BOB Jarratt from Caldwell, near Richmond, offers an entirely different conversation piece - based on an overheard dialogue in the supermarket car park.

Detail is unnecessary. What puzzles him, in reported speech, is that no one simply says something, they "turn around" and say something.

"So she turns around and says to me... and I turn around and say to her... and she turns around... ."

Bob wandered off at that point though there may have been many more revolutions, he concedes, before they'd finished yacking.

Why do people talk in such a circular fashion, he asks? Perhaps what goes around will have come around again next week.

...so to the answers to the A-level Geordie paper. A. By Jove, I'd like to show that young lady my etchings. B. My husband has been overdoing it lately, I fear. C. On the word "go", all jump as high as you can. D. My cousin Isabella is anticipating a happy event. E. I do so suffer with my stomach.

Someone may also explain the reasoning behind the phrase "How ref, they're taking a lend of yer", heard frequently at football and at Lewes v Tow Law on Saturday.

The last word, however, with Sue Carr in the Brit who asks: what you call a Frenchman wearing sandals? Phillippe Flop.

More from across the cultural divide next week.

Published: 13.02.02