Many people have visited my site over the past dozen or more years.  I have had many queries about "exactly what is a scouser" and, from Craig in Houston, "what is Scouse"? So I have decided to redo what used to be on my domain a few months ago; that is, "lernin' about scouse" and the language of the Scouser. Firstly here is Fritz Spiegel's explanation of what scouse actually is, from his mini book (pronounced boook!) entitled Lern Yerself Scouse, published by Scouse Press Liverpool 1984 edition, first published in 1965 at the height of the "Mersey Boom" in the music world. There are many definitive versions of Scouse, as in the food, but this has to be the nearest to "warriz da troof". Ma Boyle's, behind St Nicks Church on the Pier Head, does a lovely Scouse. But it goes quick, so you'd berra leg it if you want some. I also get the odd email about the exact usage of certain werds or phrases. The descriptives below and their meanings are from the 1960 era and before the wars. Certain phrases have come into the modern liverpool like one that was mentioned to me recently "ello darlin' - this is of course "cockney" - which is now officially a dead dialect as those "born in the sound of bow bells", no longer exist as the bells came down years ago. The modern words used in Liverpool are not proper scouse, not for another few decades anyway!! I recently had an email stating that he thought some of the "werds" were a bit dated. True. These are original scouse expressions that survived into the 60s, in the main, and that's the best scouse. Modern day "werds" get lost in translation and some are probably not unique to Liverpool. I actually had an email recently claiming they had never heard of the word "Wack"! I suggest a return to school la, wack was very defo a scouse werd! I got an email today ( June 31st 2006) from "down under" from an ex pat (Pete) who is coming home; this is what he has to say:

I'm a Scouser who has been living Down Under for the last 14 years but my wife and I are planning our return home because our little fella is one hell of a footy player and is aiming to become a pro. I read with interest on your web site about some people who believed "Wack" was not a part of the Scouse dialect. Living and growing up in Liverpool and Huyton during the 50s, 60s and 70s I know for a fact that "Wack" was an integral part of the Scouse dialect. When I was a kid it was deemed a real honour to be called Wack because, as kids, we associated it with being a hard knock. Also, I recall being called "Wacker" on occasion. You may already have heard of this usage and it might be worth mentioning it in future publications. For example, I used to be greeted thus: "Alright, Wacker! 'Ows it goin', Lah?"  I rather think 'wack' was a 50s or early 60s word that was invented by a pop star or something as it vanished into the 70s.

Its now January 2015, after a long long time, I received two emails in one day about the dialect. I got to thinking about it and reailsed that the scouse dialect and the english language as a whole is becoming extinct. Scouse certainly is, as kids now grow up with US games, US videos and US speak and the garbage served up on tv originating in the USA is pathetic.  Everything is becoming americanised and even the proper english spelling of words is making way for the lazy US spelling and I won't even go down that road to text speak, bloody awful. I recall a very racist song from the 60s and have a new version; 'I'd rather be a scouser than a Yank, yes I would'. (apologies to Simon & Garfunkel!!) Language wise, thats certainly true. I have not lived 'up der' since 1981, but still have 'me accent'. This is a 'history page' on scouse and some may find 'offence' in this politically correct prison we now live it, tough - its history and you cant change the past.

Sept 2015: got this in an email: "here is your wack". So “wackers” were close enough friends to share things, usually equally. Things such as food money or stolen goods. And yes, I do remember this now, its true. Thanks Malcolm Bell.

Scouse - or to give it its full title, Lobscouse, is of course a food rather than a dialect; it is the native dish of the Liverpudlian, or Scouser.  ( Or should I say it is now the native dish, having arrived here with sailors from Scandinavia). Scouse is to Liverpool what Bouillabaisse is to Marseilles or Schnitzel is to Vienna. Scouse, unlike most dishes, which were derived from a place or origin, was born out of abject poverty. A simple stew made from the cheapest cuts of meat, usually mutton, boiled with potatoes and onions. The meat ingredient is optional, without which the Scouse becomes Blind Scouse.  Either kind is eaten with red cabbage pickled in vinegar. However, like the years of poverty, Scouse is now part of the history and the visitor to Liverpool will search in vain for a restaurant that serves Liverpool's own dish, although it is sometimes possible to find Irish Stew, a direct ancestor, on bills of fare.  The author found in a German Cookery Book the following translated recipe.

Labskaus (Sailors dish, original recipe)
Boil a piece of fairly lean salt beef (or equal quantities of beef and ham) till soft and chop it into coarse pieces. Meanwhile boil some potatoes in unsalted water and add a great quantity (!) of small onions which have been braised in butter. Mash all of this together, season with pepper and pour over it enough of the meat stock to produce a mash of soft consistency. This simple dish is extremely tasty and nourishing, especially when taken with pickled cucumber and a glass of beer.

There are several variations of this, in several countries, but this is the nearest and almost certainly arrived in Liverpool on German or scandinavian sailing vessels plying their trade.  However, we may safely conclude that the origin of Scouse is to be found in some ships galley on the high seas, it matters little which nationality, as sailors had a habit of giving international status to their songs, yarns and certainly, their diseases.

Language

Ok - lets start with the lingo.  These are scouse (liverpudlian) phrases and their "Queen's English" translation. References in this go back, many to Victorian times. Liverpool was a poor place to live. References to coloured people are neither rascist nor derogatory, it was purely descriptive, Liverpool being one of the original cosmopolitan cities in the whole of the UK. If anyone out der az an update fer me on new werds I wud be ferever grateful! I do not know modernisations like for example - what's scouse for skateboard or mountain bike? This is more by way of a Scouse history lesson than modern equivalents. By history, I mean - pre 70s, before Liverpool had a footy team, apart from Everton. oh and Tranmere Rovers across the river! I support none of these by the way.  Thanks to John Cook for some additions. He disagrees about some but most agree with most, so its not farroff, izit eh la? Its not the definitive list either - many werds are not wrote! I rewrote this, turning it into a form of alphabet, sort of! Makes it easier to double check werds like what I wrote. Great eh? These words are mostly those used post WW2 and up to the 70s.

Got this in an email from ped davis (March 2007) ........... a lady I work with is from Singapore - I heard her on the phone talking to friends speaking what she says is "singlish" - a kind of pigin / dialect. It sounded remarkably like scouse ...no lah, don do dat lah.. etc, with lots of use of the word la. She tells me lah is the way you say a particular chinese punctuation character which gives additional emphasis - a bit like an exclamation mark, but in chinese proper I don't think you actually say it (as we don't say 'exclamation mark'.) I had always thought la was short for lad but this has set me wondering, especially given Liverpools very old Chinese population and the huge trade with places like Singapore and elsewhere in the far east. Perhaps like Scouse itself the expression came out of the ships and the trade, but from a chinese source.

Thanks to Paul Whitehead for the definition of "wack". However, Frank Cranny (Bootle lad) tells me this from Australia on the word 'wack': I had a lot of mates with the nickname wacker, they got their name because their name was Peter....why Peter....well as well as scouse, we were also fed another rich mans dish Pea soup which was also called peawack the upshot is we like to shorten and change names - Peter became P  P became Pewack which bacame wack or wacker as any of my old mates Wacker Lynn Wacker Westhead etc etc etc would testify to. Frank Cranny ( Bootle boy livin in OZ) - pea wack is actually a soup!

Got this from Canada May 2009:  I left Bootle, in my late twenties, back in 1967, resided in Canada but travelled the world on business until retirement in '95 and have, since then, cruised my Grand Banks '42 Trawler about the waterways of the North American continent. My boat, the "Jawbone" is named for a pub on Litherland Road, Bootle whence I had my last pint before embarking on the old "Empress of Canada'. And now to get to the point: Of generations of immigrant Irish sea goers I was always given to believe that 'Wack' meant 'Share'. Seamen's rations were laid down by Statute but were communally vitaled through the galley. But the 'Famine Irish' seamen had no trust of the English and so went on ''The Wack". Once had, however, they did not know what to do with same so 'potted' the lot amongst themselves, 'The Wackers'. In that dollops of flour, in the absence of potatoes, entered the pot, becoming dumplings, the Scowegians, (former Vikings) saw it as 'Lobscous': Hence both 'Wacker' and 'Scouser' became commonly used term to describe sailors from Liverpool. In that Liverpool sailors chose to 'wack out' that was the term they favoured as opposed to 'scoucer' which they found to be derogatory. I have absolutley no research to back any of this up but it came to me by way of my maternal grandfather who rounded 'The Horn'  under sail a number of times and had umpteen circumnavigations under his belt. (He also told me 'that ones skill increases proportionate to the demands of the boat' which I know to be absolute truth.)

Then again:  In Bootle, in the 40s, 50s and early 60s only people from other than Liverpool called us Scousers whereas we referred to ourselves as 'Wackers'. How do I know? I went to school in Crosby with the Woolbacks and listened, with boredom, to their feeble attempts at discrimination. In my 'dotage' I have no longer any desire to return again as I found that as I had changed so had my former home. I prefer my memories. K Patrick McCarthy.

October 2009: I have been having an electronic discussion with Tony Bethel about the origins of the word 'jigger' as in back alley. There is an African word for sex called 'jig jig'. Sailors would, on returning home, take local lasses into the 'jiggers' for some 'jig jig'. Another expression I have myself heard was a word for some 'shady dealings' as in 'jiggery pokery'. "There is some jiggery pokery going on there, mark my words!"

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery so I have been told. Only yesterday I found a site called red kop, or something, that has copied an earlier form of this page out, word for word, description for description without asking me first. I know it was mine.

Steve Duff tells me (Nov 09) that "I am constantly reminded that the original 'Woolybacks' are the dock workers of years gone by. Because their work was very manual, lifting & carrying things on their backs, they would wear a sheepskin on their backs to stop the skin chafing. Hence they were called 'Woolybacks'.

From Dave Emmett - June 2010: Did you know that before the war they had women-only days, men-only days, and mixed-bathing days.  If you went to the last,  you had to wear a full bathing costume.  Girls weren't allowed to see boys' chests!)   And when we lived in The Dingle it was a day's outing to go the Cazzy.  (Unless you were taken to Sevvy Park.)

Thanks to Paul Cotter for a shed load of werds - most of which I have put in.

Jo tells me (May 2015) that it is definitely a Norwegian origin for the dish, Scouse. And came with the Vikings! I very much doubt that as Liverpool did not exist back then, and was but a tiny fishing hamlet until the 18th C.  Anyway, so many variations, so many 'facts'. The fact that it arrived as a dish on board sailing ships is the most accepted fact, and probably the correct one. Over the river, on Wirral, the area was deeply forested with small hamlets. The Vikings did settle there but were driven out, to Ireland, by the Saxons at the Battle of Brunanburh.

December 2016: Another email on the origins of 'wack'. "Wackers are born and bred in Birkenhead, strong in the arm, thick in the head. (the latter description comes from Yorkshire - mk) I was told the term came from shipbuilders at Cammell Lairds when rivets were used. 'Aye La, whack this in'. Whackers became wackers - most of the workforce were employed by Cammell Lairds." The term wackers could well be correct, and sounds right, but the saying mentioned above was defo originally from Yorkshire.