10 Welsh Words Now In The OED

National Assembly for Wales from Wales, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
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1. Calennig, n. A New Year's gift. Also: the practice or custom observed on the morning of New Year's Day, usually by children, of going from door to door making a request (traditionally in the form of a song) for food, money, or other gifts
2. cawl, n.2 Soup
3. iechyd da, int. Cheers (lit good health)
4. mamgu, n. Grandmother (South Wales)
5. Senedd, n. (The Welsh) Parliament
6. sglods, n. Chips
7. tadcu, n. Grandfather (South Wales)
8. taid, n. Grandfather (North Wales)
9. twp, adj. (and n.) Stupid
10. ych a fi, int. Expressing disgust or disdain

Murenger

When I was a child I used to see in Newport a pub called (if I remember correctly) The Murenger Arms. I beleiee there was a picture on the board making clear that a murenger worked on the walls and older people woold confirm that for you. Ye Olde Murenger House (Grade II listed since 1951) is actually a 19th-century pub with a mock Tudor front on the High Street. It apparently replaced a 17th-century pub, the Fleur de Lys, on the same site. A murenger was a medieval worker who collected tolls (murage) for the repair of the town walls.

A building on the site was first mentioned in 1533, a town house for the Herbert family of St Julians Manor. By the 17th century, it had become a pub. According to Cadw the original building was a single-storey stone structure, which was demolished in 1816 and replaced by the current public house, established in 1819. A photo taken around 1900 shows the distinctive mock Tudor jetties did not exist at the time and these were added later. It fell into a poor state in the seventies but was re-opened in 1983.

See'd 'em

My grandfather was boorn in Bilston and spent most of his adult life after the Great War working in Lysaght's Steelworks in Newport, South Wales. A tall man with bright blue eyes he was not good at withstanding the heat but thankfully as a checker he was not too near the furnace. My father told me that after he had checked sheets of steal he would mark the top one with chalk - See'd 'em (not quite sure on the spelling, the point is that he had seen them).

Words from my childhood

I put this on my main blog some years ago. Today I chiefly speak standard English but as a child growing up in South Wales I spoke a variant of what is sometimes known as Wenglish (ie English but with some influence from the Welsh language). We were not valleys Welsh so we spoke little real Wenglish but we heard it and spoke a little too. Most of the words below are in Wenglish dictionaries but not all. See here and here for more on that. Here is a list of words I was familiar with as a child but now rarely hear or use. In two cases I have used a Welsh 'w' which has a sort of 'ou' sound.

1. Cwpi down - to squat (cwpi down by 'ere a bit while we wait)
[We had a teacher in Secondary School called 'twti' presumably because, coming from elsewhere in Wales, he asked boys to twti down rather than cwpi down]
2. Scram - scratch (I'll scram yer eyes out you come near me)
3. Wisp - a stye (I think I've gorra wisp coming in me eye)
4. Daps - plimsolls (Miss said we've gorra bring daps today for PE)
5. Scag - snag (I just scagged my jumper)
6. Obstropolous - Obstrepereous (She was an obstropolous type, always causing trouble)
7. Ashcart - Refuse lorry (You'll end up working on the ashcarts if you don't buck up yer ideas)
8. Cwtch -To be fondled and snuggled up in an especially loving way (Come and have a cwtch with yer mam/dad)
9. Caibosh - messed up (That's put the caibosh on that then)
10. Dobber - ballbearing used as a marble ('E lost 'is 10-er dobber to a kid in Standard 4)
11. Conflab - long discussion or meeting (Come up about 11 and we'll have a good old conflab)
12. Ructions - big trouble (There'll be ructions if your father sees it like that)
13. Skewiff - Awry not straight (You've stuck it in the album all skewiff)
14. Tampin' - Angry ('E 'ad it on 'im, aye, when 'e realised. 'E was tampin')
15. Parched - Gasping for a cup of tea (Get that kettle on love, I'm parched)
16. Jibbons - spring onions (My dad used to like jibbons with his salad)

South Walian words

On page 112 of the book English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change by Nikolas Coupland, and Alan Richard Thomas they have a list of English words from the south west common in Glamorganshire. I noticed the following as words we also used next door in Gwent or Monmouthshire - daps (plimsolls), mob (hide and seek game), nippy (cold), scag (catch thread of garment), stingy nettles (stinging nettles), tump (hillock), whimberry (bilberry), wisp (sty on eyelid), pikelet (muffin - although my mother would use the word for crumpets).

God bless the price of ales

In 1969 the present Prince of Wales was invested with his title. I remember being at my nan's in Lilleshall Street, Newport and seeing that someone had written up on the brickwork "God bless the Prince of Wales". It was there for a few weeks if I remember rightly and then some clever dick came along and modified the slogan so that it said "God bless the price of ales" (or perhaps God bless the price of ale). I was 10 at the time and though it very funny and very clever.