"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 21/12/17 (cheeselog, woodlouse)

Well, we've had Rufus' wonderful poetry recently and I though we'd mention National Poetry Day, which was really exiting this year because there was collaboration between National Poetry Day and the Oxford English Dictionary and the idea was there would be a nationwide appeal for local dialect words, so local BBC radio stations would ask their listeners which words they thought should be celebrated in poetry. And 13 words was selected and poems  written on the basis of these words. And there were some absolutely wonderful ones. And the easiest way to find out whether somebody has a local, particularly local vocabulary is to ask them things like, what do you call a soft bread roll? And yo uwill get cob, batch, barm, and various answers back. Likewise, what do you call an alleyway? There's so many different words for alleyways up and down the land. But last but not least is a rather surprising one and that is, what do you call a woodlouse? And believe it or not, the humble woodlouse has hundreds of names up and down the land and  they're really evocative and very often they involve cheese or pigs and they're called roly-poly bugs, monkey peas, I mean, the most extraordinary names for them. But it was "cheeselog" that was chosen by BBC Berkshire listeners, that was their distinctive local word. And as to where cheeselog itself comes from, we're not completely sure. But wherever it came from, it's a fantastic word, and as I say, there are so many different types of woodlise up and down the country.