Foreign doctors given guide to Yorkshire slang

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041008/80/f46c1.html



LONDON (Reuters) - Help is at hand for foreign doctors working in northern England whose patients complain of sore "lugholes" or say they're feeling "jiggered" and can't stop "gipping".


Health officials in Doncaster have compiled a guide of local dialect and slang to help a group of seven Austrian doctors -- all fluent English speakers -- better understand their sometimes thickly accented patients.


"We recruited these doctors because of a shortage in Britain and though they all speak very good English they've struggled with the local dialect," health authority spokesman Ian Carpenter said on Friday.


"The guide includes some terms that are quite vulgar, but the doctors have found it very useful and it's also helped them integrate into life in the area," he added.


The Austrians, among the thousands of recent overseas recruits into the National Health Service, will now know that "lugholes" are ears, feeling "jiggered" means exhausted and "gipping" is vomiting.


Other terms include "doofer" for penis, "tackle" for testicles and "popped his clogs" for dead.


"We're looking to hire more doctors from Spain so the guide will be all ready to help them too," Carpenter said.