Sumelic wrote:linguoboy wrote:Sumelic wrote:Does the first term refer to what would be called an "alley" in standard English?
No. An "alley" runs
parallel to the street in order to allow access to the rear of the buildings.
Oh, I hadn't realized "alley" implies "parallel to the main street." The OED and Wikipedia entries seem to say that it usually does, but that some other people have also or do also think of it as having the broader sense that I always thought it had.
I would think of the perpendicular roads as 'alleys' first, but when pressed on what the parallels might be called would concede that they too are alleys.
And having overthought about it, I'm now wondering whether I'd go with 'alley' for the parallels and 'alleyway' for the perpendiculars?
Regarding loci of lexical variation: the notorious example in England is very small loaves of bread. Buns, baps, bread rolls... the British Library in passing suggests barm cakes (Lancashire), bread cakes (Leeds), cobs (Derby) and batches (Coventry).
More prominently, words for "friend" (mate, blood, marra), "person" (guy, dude, chap, fellow) terms of address (love, duck, pet), and tags (innit, y'know) all vary wildly and are a key part of distinguishing colloquial forms of speech. Terms for family members also spring to mind (nan, gran, nain, pa, da, dad, mam vs mum, etc). Obviously terms for "good" and "very" are major speechform markers, though these change so quickly that they mark generation and time period just as much as location and class.
The BL's examples of Geordie vocabulary include things like "and such as" (for 'etcetera' or 'and so on'), "bairn" (for 'child'), "crack" (for 'fun', 'banter'), "clarts" (for 'muck'), "grand" and "champion" (for 'good'), "bait" (for 'snack', 'lunch'), "gan" (for 'go'), "granda (for 'grandad'), "loaning" (for 'lane'), "like" and "mind" (tag), "our" (marking names of friends and family), and "aught", "naught" and "somewhat" (something, nothing, some thing). And, of course, the most stereotypical marker of geordiedom, "man" (tag). And "pet" (term of address/tag). "Our mam said it were champion, like" = not from the South.
[I recognise a few of those from my father's (northwestern) speech - aught, naught and somewhat become "awt", "nawt" and "summat", for example, while clarts yields "clarty" (sticky, mucky, viscous) and so on. He doesn't say "gan" except when being nostalgic or idiomatic, though. (e.g. "wuz gannen?" where I would say "Are we going?")]