Question about a word in northern England dialect.

[sl8]

Last edited Mon Oct 31, 2022, 10:34 PM - Edit history (1)

In the video, Paul Daniels says a word that means "cup", but I'm not sure what he's saying. Could someone tell me what the word is? The exchange starts at about 0:50 .

[Easterncedar]

1. I think he says

It’s a “cup, like”. “Coop, lahhk.”

Just my idea. No expert.

[sl8]

2. Well that makes sense, at least.

I keep hearing "coobler" or "kubler", which doesn't seem very close to "cup".

Thanks.

[Easterncedar]

3. I think he's making fun of his own accent

[EarlG]

6. He says

"A cup, lad, cuz I'm from the North." He pronounces the word "cup" as "coop" which is how you'd say it in the North, and says "lad" because that's a form of address in the North, like saying "mate."

He's making fun because the guy he's talking to is from Shepherd's Bush in London and so he says "cup" almost like "cap."

[sl8]

8. That also makes sense.

The second syllable still sounds more like "lah" than "lad", to me, but I don't have very good hearing.

Thank you.

[mahina]

4. Not related to this but watching Netflix Still Game

What is a “Ned”?

Realizing Scotland is a different place but it’s close…

(It sounds like coobler or kubleh)

Thanks !

[Easterncedar]

7. Hooligan

[mahina]

10. Thank you.

[LeftishBrit]

21. Scottish term for yob; antisocial/ criminal young person

Said to stem from the initials of 'Non educated delinquent', though this may be an explanation after the fact,

[sl8]

5. Also, I just noticed that he said "sweater", rather than "jumper".

For some reason, I didn't think Brits used that term.

[yorkster]

9. I thought he said, "It's a "coop", lad".

So, a bit of taking the mickey out of his own accent by virtue of exaggeration, mebbe?

[sl8]

11. Yes, he's definitely making fun of his origin/accent.

EarlG also says "coop, lad" and I think that you're both right.

Thanks.

[yorkster]

12. And thx to you. Love this lingo stuff.

[LanguageLover]

13. Most likely it is: "Cup Laib"

I really still don't know the answer for sure but I think it is "Cup Laib".

Firstly, if you carefully notice the magician pronounce the second word, he puts his "lips" together. Now, there are only three letters in English where you have to press or "snap" your lips together to pronounce the letter and those are "P", "B" and "M". I can't think of any others where you need to do that.

We are also sure that the word starts with an "L", which many others above have guessed. So, I started looking for words which begin with "L" and end in either "P or B or M" and which would also match the approximate pronunciation we hear.

Of course, we cannot constrain ourselves to standard English because the word is surely in a local dialect or in a different language. Searching in "Scottish-Gaelic" I found the word "Laib", which simply means "Lip".

Therefore, a "Cup Laib" translates in English into "Lip Cup" or literally, "A Cup for the Lips". In other words, it is a "drinking cup". That's what seems reasonable enough to me in our context.

Strangely, if you "join" the two words together and write in lower case - like "cuplaib" - the Google translator says it means "couple". Then perhaps it is best that while writing we don't join the words "Cup Laib" together (just to be sure, keep them separate).

Of course, the magician is pronouncing it as "Koop Laa-ib", which I think we can all understand. I am sure the pronunciation "Koop" for "Cup" derives from the German phonetic rules of pronunciations.

I also found that "Laip" means "Lap" and "Laim" is the same as the English "Lime".

I didn't start my search with Scottish-Gaelic though. When he said he is from the "north", I initially thought he was from the north of England and therefore, started searching there. I found that in the far north-eastern borders of England with Scotland - near and north of Newcastle - there is an English dialect known as "Geordie". In fact, I did find a relatively small dictionary of "Geordie" dialect words online too. However, I could not find any words there which would match the words I was looking for. It was then that I broadened my search to Scottish-Gaelic.

That's all from my personal guesswork. I would wait now for a true linguist to step in and tell us what the real word is, if my own guess is wrong.

By now the discussion is surely buried under much more recent ones. Hopefully at least the original post writer will see my answer.

[sl8]

14. Wow, you really gave this some thought. Thank you.

My initial thought, much less comprehensive than yours, was that maybe it was a word that came from the Vikings (Norsemen?) that hadn't spread too far south.

Now I'm thinking that EarlG and Yorkster are correct and he was saying "coop, lad".

[LanguageLover]

15. Thanks much.

Thanks much.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Wow. Talk about overthinking it.

I think Easterncedar is most likely right - "it's a cup, like" with "cup" pronounced in the Northern way (vowel sound same as "good" ). EarlG may be right that it's "lad".

All your stuff about "lip", "laib" etc. is fantasy. It's unneeded ("like" and "lad" would both fit, and the point is he's making a tiny joke about the difference between the guy's southern accent and his own Northern one and how they each pronounce "cup"; the word after that is a throwaway). Gaelic would be a complete red herring; he's from Middlesbrough, which could be said to be a transition from a Yorkshire to a Geordie accent, but has never been a Gaelic speaking area (English since about 500 AD, with Norse influence; before that, the Common Brittonic language, to which Welsh is now the closest, but that was completely lost in all of eastern and central England).

[T_i_B]

17. Didn't realise Paul Daniels was a Smoggie!

I like that fact. Not a lot, but I like it.

[Delphinus]

22. Welcome to DU!

[OnDoutside]

18. Sounds like Cup la. It's a habit even where I'm from in Ireland to

tag on a "la" sometimes at the end of words or sentences.i think it may be short for like.

How's it going la ?

[sl8]

19. It's going OK, la.

Sorry, just trying it on for size.

I didn't know that about Irish speech, thanks.

I think part of my problem was that I was thinking it was one word, I'm not sure why . Once you consider that it may be two words, it doesn't seem so foreign.

I could definitely see it being "cup, la". I still like the other suggestions of "cup, like" and "cup, lad", too.

Thanks for weighing in.

[OnDoutside]

20. It fits well ! I don't think that it is unique to Irish speech, and I

remember being in Singapore where Singaporean Chinese speaking English would often put la at the end of their sentences.