'Stood like Clem'

[scoobz]

I have a book in front of me now about Hathersage and the word and the explaination is in it. I dont know how old you are but I can remember old Yorkshire & Lancashire Comedians & ordinary folk saying that they were fair CLEMMED when they were hungry.

 

Not doubting that there is a word called clemmed, but in your explanation that refers to people who are hungry. My Clem is a person, not a verb, and the way it's used as by saying that someone who is stood about uselessly is referred to as being 'stood like Clem'.

Incidentally, we sometimes use the word clammed to refer to being hungry.

[retep]

I have a book in front of me now about Hathersage and the word and the explaination is in it. I dont know how old you are but I can remember old Yorkshire & Lancashire Comedians & ordinary folk saying that they were fair CLEMMED when they were hungry.

 

From "The Songs Of Joseph Mather" Sheffield

"Filehewers Lamentation"

 

Of slaving I am weary,

From June to January!

To nature it's contrary-

This, I presume is fact.

Although, without a stammer,

Our Nell exclaims I clam her,

I wield my six-pound hammer

''Till I am grown round back'd

[Joanl]

If you were stood up by a date, you would be stood there "like clem " waiting for them to turn up. Or you could even be stood there like "four pennorth o tripe"..........

[lazarus]

Not doubting that there is a word called clemmed, but in your explanation that refers to people who are hungry. My Clem is a person, not a verb, and the way it's used as by saying that someone who is stood about uselessly is referred to as being 'stood like Clem'.

Incidentally, we sometimes use the word clammed to refer to being hungry.

 

Clemming house-- empty the stomach and bowel content ---- result HUNGRY

"Im fair clemmed" -- "Im hungry" I have never heard the word CLAMMED, it seems in the distant past someone heard the word Clemmed and mis-heard it as Clammed.

My Father was born in Birmingham in 1902 but no matter how much you tried to convince him he was insistant that he came from BirNingham. Words are mis-heard and go on to be used as the word its replaced.

[Rivelin6]

My Mum used to say "stood there like souse", where does that come from?

My mum did too, glad I know what it means now after 46 years.

[retep]

Clemming house-- empty the stomach and bowel content ---- result HUNGRY

"Im fair clemmed" -- "Im hungry" I have never heard the word CLAMMED, it seems in the distant past someone heard the word Clemmed and mis-heard it as Clammed.

My Father was born in Birmingham in 1902 but no matter how much you tried to convince him he was insistant that he came from BirNingham. Words are mis-heard and go on to be used as the word its replaced.

 

Thar in Yorkshire tha noes,

 

CLAM, To hunger, to starve, both in the active and neuter sense. Thus a person who had not a sufficient quantity of food allowed, would say, " Do you mean to clam me to deeath." And in giving fodder to a cow, which she refuses to eat, the keeper would say, " Eat that or clam."

 

" If ye stay upon the heath

 

Ye'll be choked and clammed to death."

 

Clare's Poems, p. 71. Goth. klammen, to pinch.

 

CLAMMED, )1 Starved with hunger. Under this word

(CLEMMED,)

Ray says, by famine the guts and

 

bowels are, as it were, clammed or stuck together.

 

. Sometimes it signifies thirsty. In Craven it is also as

 

common in the latter sense as the former; and a

 

person coming to a house on a hot day, will say, " Can

 

ye gi me oughte to drink, for I's vara near clammed."

 

"My entrails are clammed with keeping a continual fast."

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=XX0QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA72&dq=clammed&lr=&as_brr=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q=clammed&f=false

[DUFFEMS]

According to my Oxford dictionary the word "clem" is a Northern word, it's a verb meaning to starve.

[scoobz]

According to my Oxford dictionary the word "clem" is a Northern word, it's a verb meaning to starve.

 

But in the way people I know use it, it wouldn't make sense. 'Stood like Clem' infers that Clem is a person. Clemmed up makes perfect sense, as does clammed, and I thank people for their explanations of these words. The St Clement answer is still my favourite, although I haven't read anywhere where his name was ever shortened to Clem. Doesn't appear like this in the bible.

[natjack]

I just put this into a search engine to see what came up and all that came up was this thread and an earlier one. A member called ArthurFearn who's in his 80s says his mother used to say it. So it must be an old saying.

[scoobz]

I just put this into a search engine to see what came up and all that came up was this thread and an earlier one. A member called ArthurFearn who's in his 80s says his mother used to say it. So it must be an old saying.

 

Well, it's got to be an old saying cos I'm old . And my Dad who I got the term from has been dead over 20 years!