'Talk Tidy': The Art of Speaking Wenglish

by John Edwards

Slender, staplebound paperback in very good condition. Light shelf and handling wear, including a small crease to the leading edge corner (foot) of the cover and a couple of associated pages within. Pages are tightly bound, content unmarked. CN

Genres: Linguistics

50 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1985

About the author

John Edwards* is a folk-linguist author who has focused on the variety of English spoken in South Wales.

Edwards used a folk portmanteau coinage for the naming of this variety of English, titling it "Wenglish"*, and attributes its speech to the valleys and townships of South Wales.

The original books Talk Tidy, and More Talk Tidy, were written in 1985 and 1986 respectively and were reissued in 2003. They include cartoons by the artist Gren and were written as comical travel guides to Wales.



*1: Currently the fourth author on Goodreads with the name John Edwards. This is indicated by 4 spaces between his first and second name in edit mode.
*2: In dialectologist/sociolinguistic circles referred to as either Anglo-Welsh or Welsh English

Reviews

[RdWd]

A noble, endearing and honest attempt at creating a South Welsh English glossary. There are plenty of genuine Welsh English terms listed; I was able to count at least 80 which can be verified with academic collections. Edwards uses examples to illustrate these, though he does not include notes on word classes and other lexicographic features.


That being said, it should be stressed that this is amateur-linguist attempt at a glossary. As a consequence, a harrowing issue with "Talk Tidy" is its significant amount of speculation. There are a fair few words of dubious origin which may simply have been features of a very small group known to the author (or even idiolectal features used solely by the author, though unknown to him). Furthermore, there are scores of terms the author believes are Welsh English, when, I'm afraid to say, in actuality are to be found throughout tens of sociolects (regional and otherwise) in the U.K. and beyond. Then there are the supposed phonological renderings of "Wenglish" words: "wossname" for "whatshisname", "frages" for "for ages", "agen" for "again" etc. . These add very little to the glossary, for they are either features common in rapid speech or alternative spellings in a fashion not dissimilar to literary eye-dialect (using nonstandard spelling to highlight a change in accent). Though, I do believe that the author could tell there was a difference in pronunciation, he was unable to accurately display this with the orthography of the latin alphabet, and subsequently was unable to illustrate these variations.

Edwards should be commended for being the first to take an active interest in displaying the dialect in a popular fashion. By all means, pick "Talk Tidy" up if you have a passing interest in Welsh English (though most of of the material is now available on his website). Its amateur linguistic approach will certainly be accessible to all, if you're looking for something a little more academic, search elsewhere.

2.5/5

[Jay]

On reading through this, it turns out I use more South Walian turns of phrase than I thought. But my mum was from Newport way, so I shouldn't be too surprised. However, some of the phrases listed within this book, I would argue, are colloquial English phrases as well as Welsh, as I have heard them used in the northern English town I grew up and live in (and none of the people using them had Welsh rellies). That said, this is a nice collection of collquial Welsh-English as used in the mid-eighties, and it's interesting to read some words or phrases, and instantly be able to hear in my head either my mum or one of her relations saying it.

[Ga]

Excellent reference book for people from South Wales. Especially if you have foreign relatives friends who haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about half the time.