Are you still using the words coochy-pawed or ferntickles?

THEY hark back to a time when many Britons stayed in the area where they were born and raised – and retained a distinctive dialect.

Now researchers are checking to see if people in different parts of the UK still use unusual words such as ‘ coochy- pawed’ ( left- handed) and ‘ferntickles’ (freckles).

It is an attempt to update a landmark study in the 1950s when field workers travelled across England asking residents about their words for everyday objects

Academics carrying out the study have received more than £500,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. As part of the move, a dialect archive at Leeds University’s library will be opened up to the public.

Researchers will look at how dialects have changed over time and want to speak to descendants of the original interviewees. The 1950s field workers painstakingly recorded dialect variations in handwritten notebooks.

They later captured how the words sounded by using cumbersome reel-to-reel tape recorders.

Workers interviewed ‘old men with good teeth’. Over-65s were preferred as they were more likely to use traditional dialect while having your own teeth meant you spoke clearly.

Men in rural areas were mostly interviewed about farming, nature, the human body, food and the weather. Women were largely restricted to talking about housekeeping and cooking.

Fiona Douglas, an English lecturer at Leeds University, said her criteria would be very different. She explained: ‘I’m not just going out looking for old men with good teeth who haven’t moved anywhere. We will speak to people whose families haven’t stayed in one area for generations – as well as those who can trace their roots back to the same place over hundreds of years.’

She stressed: ‘ We want to include everyone’s language.’