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Monday 2 January 2017

Sky-blue pink with a Finny Haddy Border

My Mother's family - through my grandfather - has strong connections to Gateshead, bringing with it a rich heritage of Geordie language and aphorisms.

One aphorism is that of - when, as a child, asking a question - having an adult trip off the tongue "Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border" instead a more realistic answer. Hilarious to the adult, bewildering to the child, who then had to try to work it out with insufficient information.

As I have recalled this phrase, I have tried to find the origins of it, but the interweb doesn't provide many solutions.

It appears that the "sky-blue pink" part may be American in origin (see my post on this here), but the "finny haddy border" is, I think, all Geordie. Michael Quinion suggests this is because "finny addy [sic] is a corruption of finnan haddock, a type of cold-cured smoked fish" (Quinion, n.d.). Michael suggests that "finnan" is a softening of Findon, over the Scottish border, where the haddock referred to came from.

(I also wonder if Michael Quinion has recorded this as "finny addy" because of the Geordie habit of dropping aitches). I think I have also heard this as "finny hanny", not "finny addy". Of course, this change may well have come from elision, corruption, eggcorns, my mishearing or simply the Geordie habit of rhyme and rhythm.

"Quote, Unquote" radio show host Neil Rees in his book "Oops, Pardon, Mrs Arden!" also records the saying as 'haddy', and seems to imply that the phrase is has been common in UK English for some time (2001, p. 173):
Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border. Fobbing-off phrase. 'This was my mother's invariable answer to any question when we were children' - Julie Hickson (2000). Compare 'sky-blue tail', 'bottom pink' and 'little thin flowery border' under NEAT BUT NOT GAUDY. Marjorie Wild, Devon recalled. (2000) sky-blue-pink' and 'sandy-grey-russet' as nonsense descriptions. As a small child, when I asked an aunt what was the colour of something, she would teasingly reply, 'sky-blue scarlet, the colour of a mouse's fart' - to the annoyance of other adults - I have never heard this from anyone else" and have no idea whether or not it was my aunt's original' - Mrs J. Jones, Shropshire (1993). Well, Partridge/Slang has sky-blue pink' for 'colour unknown or indeterminate', since about 1885. Casson/Grenfell has, in answer to the question, 'What shall I wear?' - Sky blue pink.' (Rees, 2001, p. 173).
Partridge, the UK slang tome, does indeed have sky-blue pink defined as "Jocular c.p. for colour unknown or indeterminate: since ca 1885" (1961) which does not imply US origin, while Dalzell and Victor have "noun an unknown, indeterminate or fantasy colour. Jocular UK, 1942" (2008, p. 589). That earliest evidence date that Dalzell and Victor record (1942), seems very late to me when Partridge has 1885.

Michael Quinion thought that the origins of phrase had come into UK English from American English, where it can be found in the US literature from 1881 onwards (n.d.). Quinion, Dalzell and Victor all seem to think that this phrase crossed the Atlantic during or after WW2. However, in my Mother's family, the use seems much more embedded than that, particularly since they moved to London in the mid-1930s, and this is a phrase most commonly used by her older brother who would have heard it from our Geordie relatives before the family came south.

I have ordered a copy of Casson and Grenfell's "Nanny Says" (though I think this only illustrates the "sky-blue pink" portion of the saying). However, it may shed more light on the issue.

And whether is is "Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border" or "Sky blue pink with a finny hanny border".

Fascinating, trying to work out where things come from.

Sam

References
  • Casson, Sir Hugh & Grenfell, Joyce (1987). Nanny Says. UK: Souvenir Press Ltd
  • Dalzell, Tom & Victor, Terry (2008). The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. UK: Routledge.
  • Quinion, Michael (2005). SKY-BLUE PINK. Retrieved 9 June 2016 from http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/worldwidewords/2005-April/000324.html
  • Quinion, Michael (n.d.). Sky-blue pink. Retrieved 9 June 2016 from http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sky1.htm
  • Partridge, Eric (1961). The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang (combined 2 volume abridged version by Jaqueline Simpson). UK: Routledge.
  • Rees, Nigel (2001). Oops, Pardon, Mrs Arden!: An Embarrassment of Domestic Catch Phrases. UK: Robson Books (p. 173)

26 comments :

  1. Remeber my mother coming out with it in the 50s and we where in Merseyside with no geordie connections. Strange how things got around.

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    1. Thanks Ian C. Yes, you are right about how those phrases can get around! Also, apologies from me: my posts were set to not publish, so I found today I had QUITE a backlog of unacknowledged comments :-(

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    2. My father was from Newcastle, but my mum's family were from Southport, Lancs (now Merseyside) and she and my maternal grandparents are the ones who used the phrase "sky blue pink with spots on and a finny addy border". My grandparent's use of the phrase suggest it was definitely pre the 40s. Finny addy was there term for smoked haddock, or £yellow fish."

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    3. Nice work on the spots!!

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  2. My grandfather was from Scotland (1909-1989) and he used to say this to me as well except it was "purple" and I never really knew what he was saying at the end with "finny haddy". I thought he was saying "fin and haddie" or even "thin and fattie". But it was always the answer to an unimportant or unknown question; "sky blue purple with a finny haddy border". Another common quip was "Haud yer wheesht!". Also whenever it was pouring rain he was say "Send 'er down, David; What comes down today won't come down tomorrow." And of course he also used to riddle me "Why is a cow? Because a vest has no sleeves."

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    1. Thanks, Anonymous: that is very interesting to have a mondegreen, and a verbal shift all in one!

      Apologies from me: my posts were set to not publish, so I found today I had QUITE a backlog of unacknowledged comments :-(

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. interesting that for my grandfather it was "Sky blue pink with yellow dots", but for my husband "sky blue pink with a finny Haddy border" and he comes from Liverpool. Dialectual changes and movement of people must have displaced this phrase and changed it somewhat, but in essense it remains the same.

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    1. Thanks Anonymous: glad you got some use out of it :-)

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  5. My Dad used to say this. He was born and bred in Liverpool. I thought he said finny anny. But it probably handy- as in haddock. He also used to say when surprised by something " well I'll go to the foot of our stairs"
    "Off goes your head and on goes a cabbage" when we were naughty
    And called us in from play with "come in your mother wants her boots"

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    1. Same saying for me too family from Liverpool +Hoylake i lived North wales on the border ..

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  6. Kia ora myfairhands,
    Yes! I remember some of these from my Grannie and my Mum :-D

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  7. My grandmother was from Liverppol and used this expression - she said 'finny addy border' but I assume that was laziness.
    Another of her sayings, uttered if we were slouching about doing nothing, was ' don't be standing about like a pilgarlick' This was often heard from her and we all thought she'd made it up. Then, Frank Muir presented it on 'Call my Bluff' - remember that? We , my sisters and I died laughing until he (Mr Muir) revealed it as the truth!! Archaic, it was apparently as it sounds a tablet or pill made from garlic - an original supplement, maybe a cut above snake oil. We were impressed even though the revelation further diminished the sense of her retort!

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    1. Crikey! Now that is a saying that I had not heard! What a pearl 👍🏼

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  8. My grandfather, from Birkenhead, used to say that sandy-grey russet was 'the colour of a sunburnt fart'.

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    1. Thanks, Anonymous! Makes just as much sense 😂

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    2. My Mum used to say this to us in the 50's. She'd say 'sky blue pink with a finny annie border' (at least that's what I think she said) and as children we never queried it or indeed understood what she meant. Just one of her many 'strange' sayings that I assume came from her parents. She had no connection with Gateshead area - lived in leafy Surrey.

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    3. This saying certainly appears to have travelled: Surrey and the Antipodes :-)

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  9. We used to say it in Liverpool 1956 to 1966. It was a rhyme in the playground.

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  10. My Nan used to say this 'Sky blue pink with a finny addie border.' It was a deflective saying, but I have no idea what it meant! We lived in Birkenhead, Wirral, and I am now 57.

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  11. A very common saying in Lancashire……..if you think it through the sky at sunset is sky blue with pinkish glow and a finny handy ( yellow) border if it his been a nic,e day, so perhaps original was just a real answer to a question that later got used as a noneanswer as it is such a funny sounding phrase

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    1. Yes! My father's family was originally from Lancashire :-)

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  12. Hi, my version from Liverpool is Dan dugady grey with a finny addy border I am 67

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    1. Thank you so much for that: I had not heard that one before at all! Do you think that might once have been "Ducati grey"...? Or something else?

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