Why do some people say...?

[giraffe_02]

Why do some people say 'eky thump?' Where does it come from? Is it a northern phrase?

[shammydodger]

It is probably most closely associated with Yorkshire, though where and when it originated I don't know. I'm sure some resident etymologists on the forum will enlighten us both.

The phrase is used as an expression of surprise, along the same lines as "Good Lord!"

[shammydodger]

Giraffe

And I think it is more commonly rendered as "ecky thump." Being from God's Own County myself, and therefore a pedant, I really felt the need to point that out!

The Goodies famously used the phrase in a sketch, and it tends to conjure up images of men in flat caps followed around by whippets!

[atoach]

Ecky thump, as demonstrated by The Goodies sometime in the 1970s, was a martial art involving hitting people with black puddings.

The programme was so funny that apparently someone died of laughter watching it.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/laughing.asp

I was under the impression that they coined the phrase themselves.

[shammydodger]

Atoach

The phrase was also used in a sketch in Programme 31 of Month Python's Flying Circus (The Language Laboratory.) This episode was recorded on 24/04/1972 and transmitted 16/11/1972. The Goodies episode 42, titled Kung Fu Kapers, in which Bill Oddie reveals he is a master of the ancient Lancashire martial art of Ecky-Thump, was transmitted 24/03/1975.

Bill Oddie is a Lancastrian by birth and Michael Palin (who played the character in the Python sketch who used the phrase) is a Yorkshireman (Sheffield).

[atoach]

Thanks Shammydodger. Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs. I've found the script and it seems it was used in a Monty Python sketch. Several times in quick succession in fact. Monty Python beats the por old Goodies once again.

But it is still presumably an invented Northernism and not a real one.

[Narolines]

I don't think so, atoach; I'd certainly heard it among my Yorkshire/Lincolnshire family in the 1950s. I do believe, however, that it was more common on the wrong side of the Pennines........

[shammydodger]

Oh, by the way, atoach,

I wasn't trying to "claim" it for Yorkshire. Many of (well, okay, my only) mate(s) come from Lancashire and (t)he(y) use the phrase just as much as me. i.e. never. As long as they show their passports at the border in Todmorden, I get on paerfectly well with my poor Lancastrian brethren!

[shammydodger]

Sorry

perfectly

[giraffe_02]

Thanks very much for all your in depth answers!

[helliebobs]

Watch it Shammy! 'Poor' indeed!! :) But I must agree, I'm a Lancastrian and don't think I've ever said it!

[shammydodger]

!

And neither have I ever said E Ba Gum!

[georgiagurl]

I always say to people that say I never get a chance and they have a lot and they are to picky to take it well I say when life gives you Lemons you can make Lemonade better thn not having a nother chance