Why do Sheffielders call sweets "Spice"

[Jozafeen]

would it be kaylie ( pr. kayl-eye) ?

 

my mum, nanans and grandads always called sweets by the term 'spice' and sherbert was always kayli!

 

 

That's the one - thank you!

[flyer]

Sugar &spice &all things nice ,thats what little girls are made of (pre 1900 ?) In Leicester its Rocks. Candy simply means boiled sugar as in candied apples.Go to far-east English take's on a whole new meaning

[Anj1364]

Or Space Dust???????

 

Ive heard Sherbet called "Space Dust" in Sheffield loads of times!

 

Or would that be the retail name?

 

Space Dust was something we had as kids which was brought back later as Popping Candy (It pops in your mouth) I have always known sherbet as sherbet and sweets as sweets not spice.

[Grahame]

I moved to Sheffield from Hull when I was ten years old so that would be 1954. I had never heard of “spice” and didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t understand the other children, I didn’t know what “thee and “thou” was. When someone broke their arm it was put in a “pot” I had only heard of having your arm in a “plaster” someone was six “foot” tall and I had always said six “feet” tall. If someone dropped something in the playground they said they had dropped it on the “floor” and I always thought the “floor” was inside and the ground was outside. I was in a right old pickle and a little unhappy because I couldn’t understand the other children.

[bladeslass]

A few of my relatives call sweets spice but i never have

[vixweinrich]

Don't think that Spice is a Barnsley term - I've only lived there for about 5 years though but they call food "snap", pronounce don't "dunt" and instead of playing they say "laking" (as in lake?!) It takes a bit of getting used to but i'm a Sheffield lass at heart and we 'av the weird ones! Anyone else call a small outside passageway a Jennel? Everyone who comes from anywhere else seems to say Ginnel?

[muddycoffee]

When I was a kid in hillsborough in the 70s all the rough kids called sweets spice but I thought it sounded scruffy and childish even then. I got the impression that they used to purposefully use the term rather than sweets because they thought it made them look hard.

I however, made up my own words. and still do.

 

harazbunda hn fer !

[defstef]

'Spice' as a term is (was?) definitely used in the dales and West Yorkshire too, but again generally by the older generation- shame to lose the richness of local dialects really. And I can remember my Auntie Mavis (who was from the other side of the hills) offering me a 'toffee' when I was a little lad.

[artisan]

Don't think that Spice is a Barnsley term - I've only lived there for about 5 years though but they call food "snap", pronounce don't "dunt" and instead of playing they say "laking" (as in lake?!) It takes a bit of getting used to but i'm a Sheffield lass at heart and we 'av the weird ones! Anyone else call a small outside passageway a Jennel? Everyone who comes from anywhere else seems to say Ginnel?

 

'Snap' is coalminers slang from the boxes they kept their food in. They used to 'snap' shut to keep the coal dust out,

[leg_luvva]

It's a Yorkshire thing