An investigation into the regional variation and etymology of the words used to refer to a ‘Scally’
(A Summary)

Sarah Bromley, Department of Linguistics, Leeds University, December 2002

NB: Numbers in brackets refer to websites in the bibliography at the end.

1. Who Says what?

From a total of 94 responses from people all over the UK, I collected 43 different dialect words for a scally. These are listed below. Some refer to just males or females and this has been indicated with an (m) or (f).

charver / charva / charv
chav
chorber / chorver / chor
city boy (m)
city slappa (f)
gary (m)
greebo
Kappa slapper (f)
kev (m)
lad (m)
lass (f)
local
milly (f)
muppet
ned
nugget
pikey
pov
rude-boy (m)
rude-girl (f)
rudie
rudeage
scally / scall / scallwah
schemey / schemie
scrote
scrubber
scruff
sharon (f)
skanger
sket (f)
slapper (f)
smelly
spide
steek (m)
stella (f)
Stockport Rockport
townie / towny
trackie boy (m)
trendy
trev (m)
twalker
white trash
wide boy (m)

Examples of the ways in which these words are used:
‘There was a steek causing trouble.’
‘The sharons always hang around there.’
‘You get a lot of rudeage outside McDonalds on a Saturday afternoon.’

To simplify the data, I chose to look at only those words given to me more than once.

This leaves us with the following list of most commonly used words:

charva / charver / charv chav Kappa slapper (f) kev (m) / Sharon (f) ned (m) / senga (f) pikey rude-boy (m) / rude-girl (f) scally schemey / schemie spide steek (m) / milly (f) towny / townie trev (m)

These can be assigned to regions in the following way:

charva / charver / charv	Far North of England
chav	Kent
kev (m) / sharon (f)	The Midlands and the South
ned (m) / senga (f)	Scotland
pikey	South East England
rude-boy (m) / rude-girl (f)	The Midlands and the South
scally	North West England (and the North Wales coast)
schemey / schemie	Scotland, specifically Glasgow
spide	Northern Ireland
steek (m) / milly (f)	Northern Ireland
trev (m)	Far South of England

Wales, Yorkshire and the Midlands do not appear to have a trademark word of their own.

(Yes, some of you will disagree with the findings here. 'I'm from Birmingham and I always say pikey!' I hear you shout. These pairings aren't set in stone but represent a general pattern.)

2. Where do these words come from?

 

Using the internet and dialect dictionaries it was possible to discover a great deal about the origins of these words. Some have historical origins, whereas others appear more modern, almost as though they have been created especially for their current purpose. I will deal with the more modern words first.

Ned and Senga

A number of websites (1) revealed that Ned stands for Non Educated Delinquent. One website about fashions in Glasgow1 said that Senga is ‘Agnes spelt backwards’ and ‘legend has it that the name originated in the rougher areas of the city where parents, eager to give their children a bit of class, decided it would sound more exotic to spell the mundane Agnes backwards, hence “Senga” was born’.

Kev, Sharon and Trev

I was unable to find any references to the origins of these words but feel confident that they are modern in origin, perhaps first appearing in the 1990s as a way to refer to people from the lower classes. These words probably arose out of the generalisation that the names Sharon, Trevor and Kevin are ‘common’ names which scallies would often be called. This is similar to the way that the people of Glasgow viewed the name ‘Senga’ as characteristic of a lower-class person.

Kappa Slapper

‘Kappa’ is a make of sportswear which became particularly popular with scallies during the nineties. Kappa conveniently rhymes with ‘slapper’, another appropriate way of referring to a ‘cheap’ girl, so females likely to wear Kappa became known as ‘Kappa slappers’.

Townie

The OED’s entry for ‘townie’ says:

“townie n. (also townee) derog. town inhabitant ignorant of country life”.

Although this does not fully describe the modern definition used by many people, it is easy to see how the meaning has been adapted over the years.

Rude-boy and Rude-girl

A website “celebrating British youth culture in the 20th century” (4) states:

“Rude Boy was originally a Jamaican term, used to describe a hooligan or ne'er do well. However in late 1970's / early 1980's Britain, the term came to represent a smartly dressed skinhead who listened to Ska music.”

It seems that today, Rude Boy has altered back to its original Jamaican meaning and acquired a female counterpart. There are, however, no indicators as to why this term is a specifically Southern one.

Charver, Charva, Charv

An online Cumbrian dictionary (2) states that ‘charver’ originally meant boy or lad and gives the following definition:

“Charver (noun) boy, or lad. Eg. Deek at that charver lowpin' ower t'yat = Look at that boy jumping over the gate.”

A site containing excerpts from the newsletters of The Durham and Tyneside Dialect Group (3) goes further and reveals that ‘charver’ originally came from a Romany word “chawvo”, meaning “a young person, a friend”. Despite this, none of the older dialect dictionaries, for example Northumberland Words (Heslop, 1892), make any mention of the word.

Chorver, Chorber and Chor

Although only one informant (from Hartlepool) listed these as words they would use, they still appear to have interesting origins which are similar to those of ‘charver’. It may first appear that ‘chor’ is simply a shortened version of ‘chorver / chorber’. However, the online Cumbrian Dictionary (2) used previously provides us with information which suggests otherwise.

One meaning given in the dictionary for ‘chor’ is:

“(noun chor) Boy or Lad. Short for Charver.”

If this was the case, where have ‘chorver’ and ‘chorber’ come from? The dictionary also lists ‘chor’ as a verb:

“(verb chor) To steal or pinch. Eg. I chorred a yat on sat'dur when I was gattered = I stole a gate on saturday night when I was drunk. (I chore, you chore, he is a chorer, it is chored.)”

This suggests that perhaps ‘chor’ is not, in fact, a shortening of ‘chorver’ and ‘chorber’. ‘Chor’ may have been a word in its own right and ‘chorver’ and ‘chorber’ may have derived from ‘chorer’ meaning ‘someone who steals’, as this fits in well with the stereotype of a scally.

Pikey

Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (Halliwell, 1889) lists ‘piker’ as an East Sussex word for a tramp and ‘pikey’ as a Kent word for a gypsy. A Dictionary of The Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms (Parish & Shaw, 1887) defines a ‘piky’ as “a turnpike traveller; a vagabond and so generally a low fellow”. The word derives from the word ‘pike’ a shortened version of ‘turnpike’, “a road on which a toll was collected at a toll gate”9.

One website says that there are many such travellers in Kent “because of the summer hop picking” (5). This website also asserts that Pikeys are different to true gypsies in that they are of Irish descent, as opposed to having Romany heritage. Many of the scallies who are today called ‘pikeys’ probably have no connection to these travellers of Irish descent but it is easy to see how the word has remained. Travellers are often viewed as a nuisance and slightly dishonest and uncultured so, to the people of Kent, ‘pikey’ is an idea (l) way of referring to the scallies of today.

Chav

The Online Dictionary of Playground Slang (6) lists the word “chavvie” which it defines as “Offensive term for a Gypsy, tinker, tramp etc”. This word seems to have the same meaning as ‘pikey’ and this is fitting, as the two words are found in Kent. There are, strangely, no entries for this word in any of the historical dialect dictionaries.

Scally

The etymology of this word is by far the most complex and convoluted. I have mentioned only the most convincing and interesting pieces of information here.

This word derives from the word ‘scallywag’, meaning a person who was “sharp and street wise, perhaps a small time thief“ (6).

The etymology of ‘scallywag’ can be traced to the old America word of the same meaning, ‘scalawag’. The term was first used “in colloquial Southron (US) dialect with the sense of 'an undersized or worthless animal, a runt'” (7). There is even thought given to the etymology of this sense of the word and it is suggested that it comes from the name of a Shetland Isle, Scalaway, because “the Shetlands are known for their undersized and uncooperative ponies” (7).

A number of websites testify that ‘scalawag’ then became a word to refer to southern Americans who supported federal Reconstruction policies for their own gain after the civil war (8,10). The word then went on to mean any corrupt and dishonest politician8 and finally, according to Webster’s Dictionary, a scamp or reprobate (11).

The historical dialect dictionaries make no mention of ‘scallywag’ or ‘scalawag’ but Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1898-1905) and Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (Halliwell, 1889) lists ‘scaly’ as an adjective, one of the meanings of which is thievish, dishonest, tricky. Wright cites this meaning as American and quotes an appearance from 1896. This adjective has evidently derived from the American word ‘scalawag’, in the same way that that today’s noun ‘scally’ derived from ‘scallywag’ in the twentieth century.

The move from ‘scallywag’ to ‘scally’ appears to have happened around the mid nineteen seventies and early eighties. In the Dictionary of Playground Slang (6) a “former-scally” testifies that “In the mid-seventies a hardcore group of Liverpool supporters followed the team into and all over Europe” and it was this group that people started to refer to as scallies. This former-scally is also able to shed light on the origins of sportswear being a key trademark of a scally, he says “Along the way they stole and robbed from many sports goods stores. They brought these goods back to sell and wore them too. Hence the beginning of the ‘scally’ football fashion which began to spread nationwide in the very early eighties.”

3. Conclusion

At a time when dialect speech is becoming rarer, it is heartening to discover such a rich amount of regional variation existing amongst young people. Furthermore, there is a healthy combination of words with historical origins and ones which have been created in the last few years. It seems that some older dialect speech is still alive, with new dialect words also being created.

The reason this variation still exists and has not become ‘diluted’ can probably be attributed to the fact that magazines and television soaps and dramas (probably the biggest sources for young peoples’ acquisition of non-regional words) do not appear to ever use any of the words investigated here. I feel this is because the words are, in a sense, a slightly derogatory and ‘classist’ stereotype, so writers may steer clear of them for this reason. Perhaps more significantly though, is the fact that most television script writers and journalists are in their late twenties or older and this age group seems less familiar with such words.

It is my hope that the current regional variation remains and it will certainly be interesting to monitor how things develop over the next few decades.

 

 

 

 

 

References

Bibliography

Chambers, JK & Trudgill, Peter (1998) Dialectology Cambridge; CUP

Halliwell, J O H (1889) Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words London; Reeves & Turner

Heslop, O Rd (1892) Northumberland Words: A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Northumberland and on the Tyneside London; Trubner & Co.

Parish, W D & Shaw, W F (1887) A Dictionary of Kentish Dialect & Provincialisms London, Trubner & Co.

Wright, Joseph ed. (1898-1905) The English Dialect Dictionary Oxford; Clarendon Press.

Websites

1 www.csm.linst.ac.uk/fashion/susie.html
2 www.haven.demon.co.uk/gonmad.html Online Cumbrian Dictionary
3 www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/ddanews.html Durham and Tyneside Dialect Group
4 www.yesterdayskids.co.uk/rudie.html Yesterday’s Kids
5 www.aldertons.com/question.htm
6 www.odps.cyberscriber.com Online Dictionary of Playground Slang
7 www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/9/19/205033/984?pid=221
8 www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-sca1.htm World Wide Words
9 www.oed.com The Oxford English Dictionary
10 www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec27qs.html
11 www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online