TALKIN BRISTO

Taken from my book of memoirs Not Heavy Enough To Win a Prize?

Living in Bristol and not acquiring the bizarre manner of speech of that city was an accomplishment for which I deserve some credit. All around me, apart from my Father and Mother, had it but somehow I resisted it. There were three components to Bristol speech. The first derived from the puritan influences on the city and this took the form of using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ when addressing others and other archaic words, such as ‘bide’ to mean ‘stay’ or ‘remain’. The second was based upon an eccentric use of the letter ‘l’. The third was a strange rising inflection that made every statement into a question. These characteristics are still in evidence today.

‘Bide where thee bist’ was a commonly used way of telling children to stay where they were.

‘This’ was often replaced by ‘thick’, pronounced very … thickly. ‘Thee sit on thick chair’ was the sort of speech commonly heard.

‘Thee’, meaning ‘you’ could be said as ‘Theece’ as in ‘Theece make oi laugh’.

The omission of the ‘l’ sound at the end of words ending in ‘l’ and the addition of ‘l’ to every word possible with a particular inclination towards words ending with a vowel was and is peculiar to the speech of Bristolians to this day. The way of demonstrating the strange ‘l’ phenomenon is to ask a Bristolian to read the following:

Dame Eva Turner
Prima Donna
Of the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Is coming to Bristol

One will then hear:

Dame Eval Turnal
Primal Donnal (with the ‘i’ in Prima pronounced ‘eye’)
Of the Car Rosal Operal Company
Is coming to Bristo

Now say this out loud and make the voice rise as though asking a question at the end of each line. Now you have it. Strange, isn’t it?

Although born in Bristol and having lived there until I was seven and a half I didn’t pick up this manner of speaking; as I made clear earlier I am glad that I didn’t but now as I get older and more tolerant it pleases me when I hear a genuine Bristol voice.