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Corrie A-Z: R is for R'Names

Comments (5)

terryduckworth_2.gifIt's common in the U.K. to hear about someone in your family referred to by name with "Our" preceding the name, though it always sounds more like just the "R", and Coronation Street is no different. Sometimes, you might refer to your (usually younger) brother or sister as "Our Kid" or, as it is usually heard, "R'Kid" (as in "kid brother/sister").

Some of the more famously used monikers have been Elsie's R'Dennis, Deirdre's R'Traceh and of course, Vera's R'Terreh. Conversely, you have also heard "My Stan" or "My Alfeh" and people always ask "How's your Ken, Deirdre?" and I've also heard my Salford-born father-in-law-to-be talk about "R'Graham" (that would be My Graham... ahem!) I'm sure it goes back to a time when many people named their children after the parents and perhaps a lot of the same names circulated through the neighbourhoods so people would tag them as "my" or "our" to differentiate the name from "your" in conversation. We really don't hear it in Canada other than on the odd occasion where there are two people talked about in the conversation with the same name and then it's "my David" and "your David, but never "R'David".

In my grandmother's area in rural New Brunswick, it was often common to tag the husband's name onto the wife's rather than use the woman's last name, especially if it was a common first name. My great-grandmother was often referred to as "Annie-Oscar" instead of "Annie Tracy".

Has anyone else heard of any other traditions along the same lines?

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The feature of using ‘our’ is a northern thing, but is also apparent in the Midlands, I believe. The ‘R’ pronunciation variant is very much exclusive to Lancashire, Yorkshire and perhaps the Midlands and Cumbria. Once you get past North Yorkshire and into Teesside (where I am from) the pronunciation of 'our' shifts to a more harsh /awwer/ and by the time you get into County Durham, Wearside and Tyneside, the pronunciation (and indeed spelling) changes completely into /wor/.

My family exclusively uses ‘our’ when referring to someone by name, whether one person is talking or not. I would never use ‘my’ to refer to someone, always ‘our’. I do use ‘my’ if speaking about a member of my family under their ‘assumed’ name, i.e. mam, dad, gran, but then it becomes ‘me’, as in ‘me dad’.

I live in the U.S. My grandparents on my mother's side came from York, England. They would say my Tom for my uncle and your Tom for my brother. Our American neighbors never did that.

My family in Scotland always refers to each other as "Oor ..." I've been "Oor Stella" since the day I was born.

I've never done that and I live in Chorley! I should be hanging my head in shame!

I am from Scotland living in the US and everyone now knows that my darling husband is referred to as "Himself".

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