Do You Say Wind Or Wind?

[Beaker]

I believe that they were quoting Bob Dylan.

They may have been quoting Peter, Paul and Mary, but it was indeed written by Bob Dylan.

[dave moore]

I've always pronounced it " Wind" as in sinned since I learned the term in the 60s, and working boatmen I know/knew did similarly. I'm too old to change now and would point out that in trading days the boaters had their own vocabulary/terminolgy that was often different from accepted nautical usage, in that they were an insular, closed community whose main interractions were with folk of their own kind. These terms are still in use, mainly by we greybeards who caught the end of carrying in the 60s. So much has changed and the infrastructure is, by and large, in much better condition than in those days (if showing signs of age as highlighted by recent stoppages such as Minworth and Wolverhampton) but it's a shame that such terms are lost/ mispronounced. To me, anyway!!

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[Timleech]

Rolt tells the tale of asking a local how to pronounce Cholmondeston, having been told by someone that it's "Chumston". The local guy said "Chollermondeston", thereby adding a syllable to an already long word.

Rolt was apparently susceptible to falling for stories which might not have been 100% factual.

 

This might or might not have been one of them

 

Tim

[mayalld]

When I was younger, I called helicopters heblidoctors .

Oh, if we are going off on a tangent, may I relate the tale of when a member of the family pointed out the corned beef harvester in the adjacent field.

 

It always fills my mind with an image of a Heath Robinson contraption flinging unsuspecting cattle into a hopper

[carlt]

It always fills my mind with an image of a Heath Robinson contraption flinging unsuspecting cattle into a hopper

You've visited an Argentinian Beef farm then?

[George94]

Rolt was apparently susceptible to falling for stories which might not have been 100% factual.

 

This might or might not have been one of them

 

Tim

 

Somebody once told him that wind rhymed with binned just to wind him up. And the usage stuck.

 

As an amateur etymologist I could never bring myself to pronounce the same word in two different ways. So it's wind as in blind for me.

 

What, never? Well, hardly ever! I do sometimes rhyme block and tackle with rock and crackle, when every old salt knows that tackle is pronounced TAYCKLE.

[John Holden]

Most of the time the wind will help you turn so far and then hider you for the other half of the turn. Unless of curse it is blowing directly along the cut, in which case it probably would help you.

 

How often is the wind so obliging?

[Dave_P]

I usually say wind to rhyme with skinned but like others have said, it sounds wrong. The problem, I think, is that turning your boat around deserves to described by a verb word. That's why it sounds better when rhyming with find as that pronounciation is usually a verb anyway whereas rhyming it with skinned makes a word which is usually a noun.

[Machpoint005]

I say wind as in winding a clock. But I also say skellington instead of skeleton. Some words are just yummier to say.

 

We have Brandenburg cake and coconut Cameroons in this family. And Neo-lopitan ice cream.

 

But it's still winned, I'm afraid. Done in a winn-ding-ole.

[Athy]

Menus chez Athy can include chork pops (pork chops), libs (Chinese style ribs)and garbage (cabbage). Oh, and goughages, which they've been called since the time in the '80s when I taught a boy named Gough whose build was on the round and meaty side.

[Guest]

Menus chez Athy can include chork pops (pork chops), libs (Chinese style ribs)and garbage (cabbage). Oh, and goughages, which they've been called since the time in the '80s when I taught a boy named Gough whose build was on the round and meaty side.

 

We still have 'gish' in our house which means 'biscuit' and stems from our daughters attempts to pronounce that word when first learning to talk.

 

30 years on we can still be heard to say - "Do you want a gish with your cup of tea....."

[Mike Tee]

Many years ago, a child in our family always called an apple a 'matnick'.We've pondered for 40 years and still can't work it out.

 

Whilst on holiday in France, another child kept on about the 'pinot fairies'. Finally worked it out, he meant P & O Ferries, and not that one of his uncles was on the local fortified wine again! Allegedly.

[Pen n Ink]

When our eldest daughter was small she couldn't say sandwich. She used to call them mottinges and this has stuck in our house too. We used to amuse visitors (small things!) by going through the mantra:

 

"Say Sand"

"Sand"

"Say Which"

"Which"

"Say Sandwich"

"Mottinge"

 

Sorry - couldn't help it.

 

We've always said "wind" as in the fine alcoholic beverage - but perhaps that's just because that's the way we first heard of the term.

[Athy]

My best friend, when a small boy, always called jam "Blantings", and tells me that the rest of his family did too. He can't figure out why, I have looked on the internet to see if was a defunct brand of fruit preserve, no luck whatsoever. Mind you, he was born West of the Pennines, they are a bit odd over there.

[Catrin]

Oh, if we are going off on a tangent, may I relate the tale of when a member of the family pointed out the corned beef harvester in the adjacent field.

 

It always fills my mind with an image of a Heath Robinson contraption flinging unsuspecting cattle into a hopper

Our son always talked about 'contraption engines'. So much more fitting, I think.

 

He had a number of interesting phrases, most now lost in the mists of time, but I still like "daddy's trouser squasher" - for the trouser press.

Ah, kid's pronunciations and terms:

 

Snoojarber - screwdriver

Deedor - horse ("see-saw marjorie daw" (what nursery rhyme is this?) - see-saw on the rocking horse became deedor, still say it now more than 50 years on)

Fairy plum pudding - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

[bigste]

Don't care what anyone else says I say as in winding a clock and I am more knowledgeable that all those that go the other way. lol

[Ships Cat]

In the 70's I used to go and watch the Hargreaves coal barges go through Aire & Hebble's Healey's Figure of Three (now two). My mum said out loud as one went past, they have to turn round in a winding hole - and he turned round with a big grin and in a very broad West Yorkshire accent said no, love, it's wynding (pron, I'm not talking about the spelling, I have no idea at all how you spell it but I always call it a winding hole). As in Wynde. You get them in ancient town centres. So then: wyndeing. So there you have it! Sounds very Old Norse to me! But they were boatmen/sailors and knew a bit about it!

 

When tiny I had a Tonka dullbozer, and those things that flew around on warm summers days were flutterbyes.

 

My twins had a language of their own when they were 4. Lots of words made no sense to me but they understood it. Odd, as they're not identical and are as chalk and cheese as possible.

[Timleech]

In the 70's I used to go and watch the Hargreaves coal barges go through Aire & Hebble's Healey's Figure of Three (now two). My mum said out loud as one went past, they have to turn round in a winding hole - and he turned round with a big grin and in a very broad West Yorkshire accent said no, love, it's wynding (pron, I'm not talking about the spelling, I have no idea at all how you spell it but I always call it a winding hole). As in Wynde. You get them in ancient town centres. So then: wyndeing. So there you have it! Sounds very Old Norse to me! But they were boatmen/sailors and knew a bit about it!

 

 

May have been wynding to them but definitely winnding around here (and I believe on narrow canals generally).

 

Tim

[Machpoint005]

Menus chez Athy can include chork pops (pork chops), libs (Chinese style ribs)and garbage (cabbage). Oh, and goughages, which they've been called since the time in the '80s when I taught a boy named Gough whose build was on the round and meaty side.

Ah yes - and tins of popped ham with chalk!

[Athy]

 

May have been wynding to them but definitely winnding around here (and I believe on narrow canals generally).

 

Tim

You've hit on something there - perhaps there is a geographical division, as in Neen and Nenn or scoan and sconn.

[Ships Cat]

Indeed, I was having a day ago such a conversation with a friend who lives in Derbyshire about regional variation of words. West Yorkshire isn't your usual 'Tyke', it has it's own, Old Norse words which originally resided in the dialect (which I grew up speaking - lucky me!) but now have passed into usual parlance.

 

I don't speak dialect unless I'm back there, no-one would understand me.

[Athy]

Pardon?

 

(Only joking, I was brought up in the West Riding too).

[Neil2]

Don't know what all the arguments about.

 

Just as you wynd the paddle up with a winnedlass, you wynd the boat in a winneding hole

[Chertsey]

Not reading the whole thread but don't forget Shakespeare could rhyme:

 

Blow blow thou winter wind

Thou art not so unkind....

 

It seems most likely that at some point in time and place the pronunciations for both sorts of wind were the same. On that basis my favoured explanation is that our winding is from the same root as turning but the pronunciations have diverged.

[RLWP]

Cor - that's classy, Cherts

 

Richard