From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Demonym for people from Teesside, Northern England
"Smoggies" redirects here. For the animated television series, see
The Smoggies
.
Smoggie
is a colloquial term used to refer to people from the
Teesside
area of
North East England
. The term is also used to describe the local accent and dialect spoken in the area. The term relates to the area's notoriety for its high levels of pollution from local industry, which resulted in a thick smog that often blanketed the region. Despite popular belief that the term originates from the 1960s, its earliest recorded use is in the 1990s, as visiting
football
supporters from other areas of the country began to refer to the locals as "smog monsters", which was later shortened to "smoggies".
[1]
Despite its origins as a term of derision, "Smoggie" has since been adopted as a term of pride by many residents of Teesside.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
Originally, this was a term of abuse for supporters of
Middlesbrough F.C.
coined by their
Sunderland A.F.C.
counterparts. The name was meant to refer to the heavy air pollution once produced by the local petrochemical industry,
[1]
[2]
and from
Dorman Long
.
[3]
Though, at first, Smoggie was used as a pejorative term, it has become an example of
reappropriation
with many people now proudly calling themselves 'Smoggies'.
[1]
Current usage
[
edit
]
Primarily directed at people from Teesside, 'Smoggies' is often used to describe the areas of Teesside with a noticeable amount of industry.
[4]
The term was referred to by
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
MP,
Tom Blenkinsop
, in the House of Commons, and was recorded in
Hansard
, in July 2011.
[5]
[1]
Smoggies has occasional use as a nickname for Middlesbrough F.C.
[6]
[5]
[7]
In 2013 the Cleveland Art Society organised a major exhibition of the works of local artists entitled
Smoggies Allowed in an Art Gallery
.
[8]
Characteristics
[
edit
]
Due to the rapid growth of Teesside in the 19th century, Smoggie represents an example of new dialect formation and was influenced by
Northumbrian
,
Yorkshire
and
Hiberno-English
.
[9]
Despite its mixed origins, it is considered part of the urban North East dialect area, forming the 'Southern Urban North-Eastern English' dialect region including Hartlepool and Darlington.
[10]
Phonology
[
edit
]
- Like most North East dialects, the definite article is always full and never reduced to t' as in the Yorkshire dialect.
- Final unstressed /i/ is a tense [i] rather than a lax [?]. This mirrors other North Eastern dialects and contrasts with Yorkshire English.
- H-dropping
is common in informal speech. This is considered unusual among most North East dialects but is shared with
Mackem
.
- /l/ is typically more velarised than in other North East dialects.
[10]
- Square?nurse merger
: the vowel in
word
,
heard
,
nurse
, etc. is pronounced in the same way as in
square, dare
for many speakers. This is
[?ː]
.
[12]
- The phoneme
/a?/
(as in
prize
) may become a monophthong
[?ː]
before a voiced consonant. For example,
five
becomes
[f?ːv]
(fahve),
prize
becomes
[p???ːz]
(prahze). This does not occur before voiceless consonants, so "price" is
[p??a?s]
.
- The FACE vowel is typically [eː], or sometimes more rarely [??] or [?ː].
- The GOOSE vowel is typically [??] or [?ː].
- The START vowel is typically more fronted than in upper North East varieties, thus
park
is typically pronounced [paːk].
- In conservative forms of the dialect
make
and
take
are pronounced
mek
and
tek
(
[?m?k]
and
[?t?k]
). These contrast with the Sunderland and Durham variants
mak
and
tak
but are counterintuitively shared with broad Geordie.
[10]
Vocabulary
[
edit
]
- Smoggie is characterised by a relative lack of
Northumbrianisms
in comparison to
Geordie
,
Mackem
, and
Pitmatic
(upper North East dialects). Markedly North-Eastern forms such as
divvent
or
dinnet
for "don't" and
gan
for "go" are not found on Teesside.
[9]
- However, a limited number of Northumbrian words are still found in the dialect, such as
bairn
and
canny
.
- The emphatic interjection
well aye
corresponds to the upper North East
whey aye
or
Scots
och aye
.
[14]
- ’oway
or
’owee
corresponds to Geordie
howay
or Mackem
haway
. On Teesside the
h
is always dropped.
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
External links
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]
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