![]() To be a True Tyke you had to be born in Yorkshire but you could be an adopted Tyke if you lived here long enough though not eligible to play (until relatively recently) for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.Įven Yorkshire dialect sometimes became known as Tyke – and if you spoke with a strong Yorkshire accent, and used the dialect of your part of Yorkshire, you would be accused of “Talking Tyke”. A Tyke was rough, unkempt, combative but also sly, shrewd, and careful with money (another alleged Yorkshire attribute) – a tight Tyke.Ĭertainly by the 19 th and 20 th centuries it was more often used for inhabitants of industrial Yorkshire, especially the old West Riding and frequently for the horny-handed sons of toil from the mines, forges and mills that for many decades were the wealth creators of Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Over the years, certainly by the 17 th and 18 th centuries, its meaning became more localised to include not just the inhabitants of Yorkshire but also from Tyneside. Like many words in Yorkshire and Northern dialect it originated from Old Norse tika where curiously enough, for its present gender orientation, it meant a female dog or bitch – especially a mongrel good at catching rats.īut it came to be used in medieval times for a naughty or mischievous boy or urchin. So what does the word Tyke actually mean? ![]() A familiar name for a Yorkshireman (but strangely, not usually for a Yorkshirewoman) and which is still often used by people from other areas of England, most especially Lancashire, is a “Tyke”.
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