I was really privileged earlier this year to do a bit of work on an initiative between the Oxford English Dictionary and National Poetry Day and the experience was to find poets who would write about local words. And so a shortlist was made of some of our favourite local words and one of the words was one of my favourites which is mardy, and that's become quite national now as an adjective for meaning sulky or moody, but very much associated with the North ans the Midlands originally. And particullarly in Nottinghampshire, in fact, the first refference that we have of it is from 1882 and a glossary that says "a crosspatchy child in Nottinghapshire is called a mardy child". Ans so I thought I would look at the lexicon for curmudgeons today cos there are so many words in the English language to describe curmudgeons. Sadly we don't know where curmudgeons itself comes from, it's one of the big mysteries. But to go back to mardy, it is simply a spelling, a different spelling for marred, which, in term, if you mar something, you spoil it and we talk about spoilt child so it's as simple as that, really. But whot about grouch? That goes back to a variant of grudge, and in fact grouse as well, if you grouse about something, then you moan about it. That goes back to a Norman French word, so perhaps the Norman aristocrats after 1066 could be a little bit grouchy sometimes. Grumpy, you can first find grumpy in the expression "grumps and humps". You've got the grumps and humps on and both of them represent the sound of discontent. And, finally, two of my favourites, a fussbudget is a surly, sulky fusspot, basically, and an old word for a person filled like a bag with a sort of discintent, if you like. And, finally, if you are really melancholy and a little bit mardy, then you also have the mubblefubbles, which is just the most brilliant wors for somebody, as I say, who's just perhaps on a Monday morning not quite with it and a little bit irritable.
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