Something for dialect lovers, from this month's Durham Dialect Society newsletter:
Maist o the words we discuss come from popular speech, some go back a long way, some quite recent. Occasionally a rarity comes up, and such we suggest is the coastal term steel (also spelt stiel) for a steep rock. This does not seem to be recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary but is well attested on maps of the North-East Coast. There is an Old English word stgel (pronounced rather like stayel) but only recorded once or twice; closer would seem to be Danish stejl steep, precipitous and Norwegian steil steep, abrupt. It may well be a word introduced by Vikings, but it is curious it does not occur in other Viking-settle areas
Maist o the words we discuss come from popular speech, some go back a long way, some quite recent. Occasionally a rarity comes up, and such we suggest is the coastal term steel (also spelt stiel) for a steep rock. This does not seem to be recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary but is well attested on maps of the North-East Coast. There is an Old English word stgel (pronounced rather like stayel) but only recorded once or twice; closer would seem to be Danish stejl steep, precipitous and Norwegian steil steep, abrupt. It may well be a word introduced by Vikings, but it is curious it does not occur in other Viking-settle areas
