PIGGY in the middle as always, last week's column pondered the origin of the word "gis", as in "Fower taties more than a gis."

The response has been headlong, like the Gadarene swine, though entirely more thoughtful, of course.

Except in Darlington, which the North-East dialect seems to have circumscribed in much the same way that the worst of the snow now does, a gis (or "gissy") is a pig.

Readers' sources range from the Quickway Crossword Dictionary to the Concise Oxford. Apart from Mr Dennis Harvey, who lays claim for Cockfield, almost everyone agrees that the etymology is Scandinavian, probably Old Norse.

Paddy Burton in Sunniside (the cold comforted one above Crook, not the Sunniside of the street west of Gateshead) underlines a derivation from "griss" - "pronounced grease, I think" - which is Norse code for pig.

Paddy then discovered that in Sweden a pig is a "svin" but that pork is "grisskoet", a short cut (as it were) to brisket.

Nor, he adds, could he help wondering if there's a link to "hissy" or "gissy" fit, meaning to squeal uncontrollably.

Mel Blanchard in Peterlee supposes that gissy is a corruption of gutsy, meaning fat or greedy ("or both") but wonders why gutsy is taken to mean "brave" in the rest of the English speaking world.

Pat Cariss in Killerby, near Richmond, found the Scandinavian griskin - "a little pig", the Icelandic griss ("a young pig"), the Danish griis, the Swedish gris and the Greek version, topped with little squiggles foreign to this keyboard, which meant much the same thing.

Perhaps someone was unable to pronounce the letter 'r', she suggests.

John Briggs in Darlington and Tom Purvis in Sunderland also had their ever-valuable ten pennorth, both confirming "Gis, gis, gis" as the call of a frustrated swineherd.

The last word, however, to Brian Anderson from Dalton, near Thirsk - one of at least three Daltons in North Yorkshire - who wonders, as someone was bound to do, about cushy cows as well.

Only last week, perchance, Brian was reading The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford, an account of the attempts on the South Pole by Amundsen and Scott.

One of Amundsen's Norwegian companions, the book notes, decided that the great polar plateau should be name "Grisevidda" - the Swinish Plateau.

As probably they say at the South Pole, it is a very small world.

DENNIS Harvey, exiled from Cockfield these past 50 years but still twanging like an outhouse door in a gale, suggests that "gis" is from "Gissa bullet" and similar variations.

He is mistaken, though it offers the chance to mention - a suicide note, so to speak - The Observer account of last Saturday's match between Everton and Leeds: "Everton should have had a third goal in the final minute but Kevin Campbell teed-up Radzinski instead of shooting himself."

SINCE the Gadfly column is clearly regarded as Chief Treasurer of the English Language, a word on the splendid Strickland Carter, whose retirement as Easingwold town council clerk was reported in Monday's paper.

Mr Carter was formerly head of North Yorkshire CID. During a major investigation 20-odd years ago, we had cause one Saturday morning to ring him at Richmond police station and enquired, pretty preposterously, if he were busy.

"Busy," said Strick, "if they shoved a broom up my backside I'd be cleaning the stairs as well."

Though by no means the last, he was the first person we'd heard use the phrase. Other accomplishments notwithstanding, it is by such sweeping statements that good men are remembered.

COME to think of it, it was Det Chief Insp Nobby Clark - a long gone head of Bishop Auckland CID - who when asked the same question replied that he was like Cockfield Band, "just buggering about". What had Cockfield's musicians done to deserve such eternal obloquy?

PROCEEDING like an old school polliss along the Roman road from Piercebridge to Royal Oak - once sentried by mile upon Roman mile of old fashioned telegraph poles - we were somewhat surprised to encounter a sign announcing that it was County Durham, Land of the Prince Bishops.

Whilst it was undoubtedly true, the county boundary is by the Tees, three miles to the south. A mile or so further north, at Royal Oak itself, there's another "Co Durham" sign.

What are they doing there? Has someone been moving the goal posts, or the road signs, is it felt that folk need an occasional reminder or has the county council simply taken delivery of far more boundary markers than there are county boundaries?

Other suggestions on where the council might put them should be addressed directly to County Hall.

TWO notes from Durham Cathedral: the ever observant Janet Murrell sends (a little belatedly) the printed Order of Service from the New Year's Eve celebration, including the lovely hymn Lord, For the Years.

"Hungary and helpless, lost indeed without you..."

Rae Black, also from Durham, was in the cathedral with his two-year-old grandson the other day when faced with a virtual forest ("or whatever it is you call them") of burning candles. The little 'un leaped from his pushchair, began to sing Happy Birthday and had to be restrained by his grandma from blowing them all out.

(Linguistic note: do burning candles wax or wane?)

TYNE Tees Television has been running adverts to attract advertisers. Their map of the region, we observed two or three weeks ago, seemed to have gained an "island" in the middle of the Tees.

Once there was one, says Ron Young in Thornaby, and kindly sends photographic evidence to prove it was no drop in the ocean.

Officially it was the Fifth Buoy Light, the improbable buildings used by the Tees Commissioners as dance hall and meeting rooms and accessible ("unless you were a good swimmer") only by the good ship John H Amos, about which the column recently reminisced.

"The toilets were of the long drop type, unless it was high tide and a bit of a gale blowing and then they became a bidet as well," recalls Ron.

The Fifth Buoy Light was removed when the river was widened and deepened to allow supertankers to reach Middlesbrough.

....and finally, we wondered several years ago if the longest word which could be made up from the top row of a standard "qwertyuiop" keyboard was, indeed, typewriter.

Admitting that it has taken some time in the germination, retired polliss Jim Jennings from Durham now claims one to beat it - rupturewort, "a small old world plant of the pink family formerly believed to cure hernias."

It's true, of course, that some things take a little longer - but the column first ran to the 11 top line letters of rupturewort on July 15 1998.

Like the tail end Charlie of the Gadarene swine, we return, ineducably, next week.