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I'm wondering if there's a word for everything in the Northern-English dialect that's spoken in and around Yorkshire.

I know that there's summat (something), owt (anything), and nowt (nothing), but is there a Northern-English word that follows the same pattern and means everything? (And is generally considered as an equivalent member of this family of constructions?)

Heartspring
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Qiu Ennan
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    Yes, they have a word for everything. :) – tchrist Feb 01 '23 at 01:08
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    More seriously, some of these forms show up in southern Scottish as well as northern English, and unless you have a native speaker of either to tell you which ones do or do not get used in a particular region, it may be rather hard to pin down. Certainly various varieties of Scots have words that they do use where we would use everything, like here and here. – tchrist Feb 01 '23 at 05:15
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    @tchrist - please post answers in the answer box and not as a comment!! Thanks – user 66974 Feb 01 '23 at 07:53
  • @user66974 tchrist’s comments are not answers but are relevant comment and interesting. – Anton Feb 01 '23 at 09:54

2 Answers2

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I know of no similar word for “everything”. I doubt it exists. Here is the well known (locally at least) Yorkshireman’s motto:

Historic UK
Ear all, see all, say nowt;
Eat all, sup all, pay nowt;
And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt –
Allus do it fer thissen.

Loosely translated, this is:
Hear everything, see everything, say nothing
Eat everything, drink everything, pay nothing
And if ever you do anything for nothing
Always do it for yourself

If there were a word for “everything”, it would surely appear in this caricaturing ditty. It does not, so the likelihood is that no such word is in common use. And I never heard one during my upbringing in deepest Yorkshire.

I often heard all as in constructions such as:
Has tha go’ all’us tha needs?
Meaning
Have you got all (everything) that you need?

(Note: “all” is pronounced with a short “a”, as in “as” rather than in “fall”. Forgive my ignorance of phonetic symbolism.)

Anton
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    There's a 't' at the end of "has" and an 'r' sound between "go'" and "all" in my experience giving "hast tha gorall as tha needs?" I don't know IPA either. – BoldBen Feb 01 '23 at 08:53
  • @BoldBen agreed. I feel the “t” and the “r” are somewhere between silence and full expression so I do not dispute in any way what you say. Tha’s reet. – Anton Feb 01 '23 at 09:46
  • Interesting! "All'us" sounds almost exactly like the Dutch "alles", which means 'everything'. – Joachim Feb 01 '23 at 09:56
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    @Joachim Yes, "All" is related to Dutch/German "alles" and similar Scandinavian words. But I always understood "all'us" as a form of " all as is", meaning "all that is". For example "Bring all'us necessary" = "Bring all as is necessary" = "Bring all that is necessary". But we are delving deep into my memory, which is not always reliable! – Anton Feb 01 '23 at 10:59
  • @Anton tha's reet an' all! Mind you the 't' at the end of 'hast' is there because Yorkshire, Derbyshire and other dialects never abandoned the second person singular. – BoldBen Feb 03 '23 at 10:49
  • @BoldBen always a treat exchanging views with you. Might even enjoy a drink at Tickton one day! – Anton Feb 03 '23 at 11:31
  • Cheers Anton! You're prob right, though 'summat' doesn't appear in that extract and so it's possible there is an obscure Northern English word for everything. – Qiu Ennan Feb 04 '23 at 06:25
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I am from Yorkshire and nothing comes to mind, but then again I'm not familiar with older Yorkshire dialects.

We do sometimes use "lot" to mean all/everything/any which is informal but I don't think that it is only used in Northern English(?).

I'll give you three quid for the lot (everything)

I don't like the lot of them (any)

All the moves were terrible, the whole lot of them (all)

source: me

Kimbi
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