Question for people from the UK

@James57 I am from the midlands and it's always been scone as in cone with an s

@daddybloke Ah - Midlands...

In which case you may be able to tell me something that's long puzzled me, a South Coast native and resident of Midland parentage: two dialect words that may be Notts or Lincs:

[i]Pikelet[/i], and [i]Twitchel[/i].

One's edible, the other not! Our family retained the former but slowly lost the latter. I know their meanings but not their part of the country.

By the way, I think [i]scone[/i] is pronounced with a hard 'o' also in parts of the South.

@ArishMell A pikelet is similar to a crumpet but not as most think exactly the same, they are thinner and contain no yeast the origin i know little about it seems to be used nationwide ? a twitchel i haven't heard anyone say that for a long time and it originated in Nottingham

@daddybloke I see! Thank you!

Our family tended to call those perforated dough-cakes sold as "crumpets", pikelets apparently without too much reference to etymology, then, but it may have been what was available locally!

"Twitchell" (a footpath, apparently particularly a fairly enclosed one) was used by my grandmother in Arnold, but I didn't know if it was a Nottingham word or from elsewhere, there being some Lincoln connections in that side of the family.

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A few years ago while on holiday in North Yorkshire, I realised I'd left something at home but could buy a replacement locally. The first shop I tried, in Settle, could not help but suggested one that might.

The shop-keeper's directions to it were, "Cross the main road and it's through the ginnel."

I found the shop, no problem - and yes, it stocked what I needed!

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Typing that gave me a sudden thought... Yorkshire. Nordic.

York / Jorvik. Beck / Bekk. Aye & nay / Ja & Nei.

[i]Gate [/i] in some street-names in that fair county; not a barrier but a "street" over there.

There is no close match to "ginnel" in my [i]Engelsk Ordbok[/i] but modern Norwegian's near[i]gjennom[/i] = "through"; hence [i]gjennomgang[i/] = passage or thoroughfare.

It's a stretch, but might [i]ginnel[/i] be a corruption of an old Norse word for the same thing?

@ArishMell pikelets are similar to crumpets in looks, but taste different due to the lack of yeast which is also why they are more pancake like as they are typically half the depth of a crumpet , i moved later to the North east of England and ginnel was a popular word, again typically for a narrow entrance more open than a twitchel also originally a ginnel was between terraced houses the usually, the early version was used to describe a narrow passage leading to the sea

@daddybloke I see - probably we'd been calling either fo them, 'pikelets'!

It's lovely, so many different dialect words for similar things - I think I've come across "close" for a narrow passage between terraced homes, sometimes though the building rather than between separate terraces.

I think the Gloucestershire equivalent I have seen in Tewkesbury is "close", but I may have remembered wrongly.

Elsewhere, on the coast, the narrow passage to the sea is an "ope" (from "opening"? possibly.)

As for accents, an acquaintance from Dudley told me that as recently as only a couple of generations or so ago it was common for people from his town, say, not to understand a resident of Birmimgham or Walsall and vice-versa - yet these towns's centres are only a few miles apart.

@ArishMell huge difference in dialect between the black country and Birmingham no one understands Nlack country the have their own words and are known locally as ( yam yams )

@daddybloke Yet as I say, only a few miles or so apart! Then go 20 miles up the road to Derby and the accent is already changing to a more rounded one from the sharper, slightly sing-song West Midlands voice.

I recall one evening in the pub the barmaid talking to a man standing next to me, who had a recognisably Northe-Eastern accent. She identified him as from Middlesborough, as she was, not Newcastle - I could not tell the difference but they knew it.

I wonder if other countries have such a wide range of accents over such short distances?

@ArishMell We always had pikelets, never crumpets. I only came across crumpets in latter years which are identical.
My parents and their parents were from Southern Birmingham but did not have what I would regard as a Brummagem accent which is more associated with the Black Country.