Oh dear readers I saw something on tv today that will will live with me forever. No not the end of Spanish tika taka football but an edition of Come Dine With Me set in God’s own comedy land of Halifax, West Riding. It starred a young woman, Caroline, who was truly lovely but with an accent so reet belting Yerkshire she could strip t’skin off a stick uh rhubarb from 10 paces.
Anyway Cazzer was reviewing the menu from her initial host, first item the ‘Horse’s doovers’. Eh? She repeated it with a huge laugh before I realised she was speaking Yerkshire about the hors d’oeuvres. Smile. Honest and completely unabashed Caroline explained that she didn’t do too much French at school. Fair enough love but it didn’t stop her talking about her dessert course as her ‘Piers dee Rezzi Starnce’; her undercooked and very wobbly lemon meringue pie. Oh joy. I’m not trying to be a patronising posh grammar school lad about this; the woman was clearly young enough to have French on her curriculum and let’s be generous, must have been preoccupied during most of the lessons. She didn’t seem to be embarrassed about mangling one of t’werld’s merst byoatiful languages so why should I be coy about talking about it? The accent is already fun for an old Lancastrian like me but her mispronunciation of la langue francaise belle is just merveilleux, or as Cazzer might put it Mervy Lux!
The other folk were all reet ‘alifax too which just added to the fun. There’s were so many ‘soap or froat joace’ moments I could probably write a useful Guide to West Yerkshire as She’s Sperken before Brazil have been knocked out of the World Cup. But inspired by Caroline I’m more tempted to write a glossary of mutilated foreign expressions heard at all the best dinner parties from Brighouse to Sowerby Bridge. I think I’ll call it ‘Less Cargoes’
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Pasta Paulie 