Q: During a conversation in the staffroom of our school in Seaham, it came to light that I was old enough to be the father of one of the members of staff.

"That makes you a gadgie in her eyes," ventured another member of staff.

I pointed out that to me, a Teessider, a gadgie was more than just an old man. It meant a kind of minor authority figure like a watchman or a park keeper. A colleague from North Tyneside agreed.

The next day in a conversation with a Teesside friend, the word was used in another slightly different way. He was on his way to repair his father-in-law's roof.

He claimed the young man he was working with was not a cowboy but a proper gadgie. So in this case it meant someone with expertise.

Likewise, Middlesbrough Football Club promotes its website with an advert for "cyber gadgies". Perhaps the word is evolving in Teesside.

I understand gadgie is of gypsy origin but why does it have currency in the North-East with a variety of shades? - V Woods, Yearby near Redcar.

Q: I have heard that the Vikings didn't really settle north of the River Tyne, so how can we explain the use of the Geordie phrase "Gan yem"?

It is clearly a Norse phrase if ever there was one. - Eric Southall, Gosforth.

A: Dialects, like languages are always evolving and absorbing words from neighbouring regions that can develop new meanings. The word 'gadgie' is Romany, an Indo-Iranian language spoken by gypsies.

In past centuries, it was noticed that many Romany words were used in Northumberland and particularly around Alnwick, although most people in Northumberland spoke their own, distinct dialect.

A presentation to the fourth International Conference of Romany Linguistics at Manchester University in 1998 demonstrated that Romany words were actually more predominant in Berwick. Words were used in Berwick that were not familiar in nearby areas of lowland Scotland.

One Romany word familiar in Berwick, that is widely known elsewhere, is 'gadgie'.

It is used in Cumbria, lowland Scotland, Tyneside, Durham and Teesside. It probably spread south from the Borders. In Romany it was spelt 'Gage' or 'Gorgio' and originally meant any person of non-gypsy origin.

In other words, it meant most of the inhabitants of the Borders.

Over time it was adopted by non-gypsies who assumed it meant 'man' and variations seem to have developed in Teesside.

Many words once used in the dialects of the countryside are now common in towns and often towns develop variations on these words or claim phrases as their own. This may be the case with the Norse phrase 'Gan hyem' - meaning 'going home'.

Tyneside and Northumberland have very little evidence of Viking settlement compared to Cumbria, Yorkshire or even the Tees Valley and Tyneside's dialect is largely Anglo-Saxon.

The answer may lie in the fact that 'Gan hyem' is still a very important (and ancient) feature of the Cumbrian dialect, where there was significant Norse settlement. The phrase could have been imported from Cumbria via Tynedale.

Published: Monday, October 29, 2001