Hacker News Reader

Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

Also in the UK and never heard of this in my life. Guessing this is very regional?

As with most things on the UK, probably. I definitely used Bobbins.

I used to think everyone called (cobs|bread cakes|rolls|barns) muffins, and it turns out it was just my small town that did it. As in, just my small town, not region, county, etc.

If you call it a teacake, and I say no those have raisins in, and you protest that's a fruit teacake, I know you're probably from Burnley: https://www.ourdialects.uk/maps/bread/

does that area have a textile manufacturing history?

I ask because i'm only familiar with a thread/yarn bobbin, I wonder if it derived from that.

It does indeed, probably the heart of it.

Yes. The North West and the midlands was where it all started. Cotton, mills, Industrial Revolution etc

>> I used to think everyone called (cobs|bread cakes|rolls|barns) muffins

UK regional dialects are summed up really well here because despite listing five different names for a specific thing you still neglected the word I use (baps).

And mine! (batch)

It's definitely chip muffin. I have no patience for those heretics up the road with their chip barms.

Hahaha. Chip butty

Extra vinegar please, I want my muffin drenched.

It’s barm, with an m, from barm cakes. Barm is the frothy scummy stuff you get on top of fermented beer, and it contains yeast. Back in the day bakers would take the barm from local brewers to make weakly fermented bread rolls… barm cakes.

(So obviously those calling them cobs or rolls or whatever else are just wrong!)

I think that was just autocorrect to be fair. Barm isn't in the standard dictionary

I suspected that might be the case, but I wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity to share one of my fun facts!

Can confirm. Per the (paywalled) Oxford English Dictionary [0]: 'barm' is The froth that forms on the top of fermenting malt liquors, which is used to leaven bread, and to cause fermentation in other liquors; yeast, leaven. OR The froth or foam on the surface of beer OR English regional (chiefly Lancashire). A soft round bread roll, a barm cake.

[0] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/barm_n2?tab=meaning_and_use#2...

It's pretty common around Manchester. Bit like being nesh. But as you know... this is a thing: https://www.ourdialects.uk/maps/bread/

Might also mark you out as a certain age if not from the right region - I’m familiar with it as a word for “a bit rubbish” because of listening to Mark & Lard’s late night show on Radio 1 in the 90s

Reply on news.ycombinator.com