Wednesday, March 04, 2009

UWOTD

Using a bizarre bit of word association, I've moved from yesterday's Ulster Word Of The Day 'dote' to arrive at dole, which is a word used in the UK for the Unemployment Office or even used for what you GET from the Unemployment Office.  

So you could "go down the dole" or you could be "picking up your dole"  as in dole money or you could even "be on the dole."  

But before you jump on me and claim this isn't an Ulster only word, I never said dole was the UWOTD.  Ha !!

In Ulster we have the word 'brue' so that we "go down the brue" (not sure why unemployment offices always seemed to be built in geographical dips) once a week to get unemployment money.  Or "he's on the brue."  Well not me of course.  Oh no.  Always been gainfully employed.  I've never heard it used as the money you get though, so you'd never hear "he's gone to get his brue" which would, of course, lead people to think he'd gone to get a cup of tea.  Tea being brew.

God I'm getting in a right pickle now.....this word business is a can of worms.

So I'm leaving it at this -  brue :  unemployment office/dole.

And now I'M off for a brew.

1 comment:

Jan said...

I used to work at the "brue," but we won't go there. I'd much rather join you in a brew. :-)

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