Local saying?

[mightyWBA]

Where I live near Dudley, if someone says something silly we say "Don't be saft".When I said "saft" to someone from London they didn't understand.Is the word "saft"only used here,or does anybody else use it?

[dotjhawkes]

Is it a cross between daft and soft? Never heard of it though.

[gary baldy]

Nope me either! I lived in Cannock for a bit (many years ago) and i dont remember it!
The only funny joke i heard Lenny Henry tell post-Tiswas was about an elephant from Dudley zoo with the punchline:
"Did you come here to die?"
"No i came here yesterday" (say it a brummy accent)
Do you know that joke mightyWBA?
Anyway - it is glorious that in this Starbucks mono culture we supposedly live in that local sayings still exist.
Try telling someone to stop 'mithering' you outside Manchester.

[Quizmonster]

Well, Gary, if you say 'mithering' in Aberdeen, they'll certainly understand you! It's far from being unique to Manchester.
Similarly, 'saft' - also the pronunciation used in Scotland - is just a northerly variant of 'soft' which has meant 'silly' since the 1600s.

[gary baldy]

Thats interesting QM - i have had so many blank looks from around the country - we use it in two slighty different contexts - how do Aberdeenians use it ?
Stop mithering me - stop bothering me
Cant be mithered - cant be bothered

Another one i like is 'Bobbins!' when something is rubbish - from cotton bobbins / rotten.

[mightyWBA]

I could tell you a joke about a "whale" in a Black country accent if you want!

[Donjuan]

I was also brought up near Dudley and definitely used to use 'saft' in this context, but have never heard it elsewhere.

[Narolines]

Not just Aberdonians, gary baldy - "mithering" is alive and well in the West Midlands (I'm sure mightyWBA uses it!) and means "bothering" in the sense of making a nuisance of yourself. Now does anyone outside north-east Birmingham call a dustbin a "miskin"?

[mightyWBA]

I'm certainly mithered about the baggies after today!

[Quizmonster]

Click here for an earlier AnswerBank thread on 'mither', Gary.
'Miskin' is just a Midlands variant of 'mixen', the Old English word for a dung-heap or refuse-pile, so its use as an alternative for 'dustbin' is easy enough to understand. Whether it is used anywhere other than Birmingham today I do not know, Narolines.

[Tony531]

Ay Mighty WBA, yo doh arf talk posh! While yo may say "Oh, Don't Be Saft", ussen all 'ere'd say "'ere yo, doh talk saft, yer twerp!"

An' surely any fuel knows what 'saft' means! Ar, it means SAFT, day it? See, yo Baggies fans day know yer faerce from yer elber, even in broad daylight ...

Evrywun over ere in the real black country [Cradley Ee'ath] all know as 'ow saft's linguistic derivation is a dialectical compromise between the anglo-saxon "daft", the old latin derived 'silly', and the specific psychiatric term 'soft' [derivation as per the DSM-V Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual, the black country translated edition of which defines 'soft' as: "SOFT (adj) as in 1. "E's soft in the yed, ay 'ee?", 2. A bit of an idiot, 3. Most likely to serport the Baggies"]

So "Saft" is a gentle daftness, lack of general intellectual vigour, relatively armless. And it is probably a quite reasonable aim to have in life to be able to move gently in and out of a state of saftness ...

[mightyWBA]

'ommer em cradley,us baggies am saft in the yed,but the raysun om ****** posh is cuz wim in wudsley wear wiv got electricity aer kid!

[Tony531]

Ar. As I sed, posh.

An' yo jus watch it mate, cos WE 'ave electricity in Cradley Ee'ath an' all. We 'ave!! EVERY time theer's a thunderstorm.

An mar mate as 'is own torch. Ar, e's wairld famous in Cradley fer givin' light in our darkest nights.