SO, I've written recently of my inner cringe when people say 'ospickle' instead of hospital and 'chimley' instead of chimney.

But there's another word creeping in to the lexicon - those people who say 'Jellow' when they mean 'hello'.

"Yellow," they say, answering their mobiles.

They're so relaxed, aren't they, The Yellow People. Trying so hard to be over-familiar.

Someone I barely know saw me in the street, threw her arms wide open and yelled: "Big hug!" as I approached.

What...the

What I wanted to say was: "I don't do big hugs with people I barely know," but I just ended up getting pulled in to the hug tractor beam.

When I came out, I felt more uptight than I did pre-hug, which is not exactly the result you want from a hug in my book.

Up at Chateau Boucher, I wake up pretty much every day at the same time to a DJ on the radio who invariably finishes his sentences with the words: "This smorning!"

As in: "There's lots of traffic on the roads this smorning!"

Or: "How are you all doing out there this smorning!"

Later, I walked into the office and actually heard myself telling the entire room: "How are you all this smorning!!"

Coolio is another modern expression that can set my teeth on edge.

As in: "How are things with you?"

"Coolio."

So things are coolio now, apparently.

How did Coolio, a rapper with one hit - Gangsta's Paradise - back in the distant days of 1995 - have anything to do with adequately articulating how someone who lives in Burneside is feeling about the world?

Another thing people have started saying is: "Well, good luck with that."

This is a way of communicating that they don't believe something is going to happen without actually saying it.

A person I know calls me 'chief'. "All right chief," he whispers down the phone.

"Yellow," I reply, picking up. "How are you this smorning?"

Whenever I go down to Barrow...because you always go down to Barrow, never up.

You go 'down' to Morecambe and 'up' to Penrith and 'across' to the West Coast or 'over' Shap and 'out' to Appleby.

Remember this mantra off-comers and you'll be accepted instantly.

Whenever I go down to Barrow, I tend to have the following conversation.

Me: "How are you, are you all right?"

Them: "Yeah, are you all right?"

Me: "Yeah, I'm all right, thanks."

(Uncomfortable pause.)

Me: "So you're all right then?"

Them: "Yeah, I'm all right. How's your Mam? Is she all right,"

Me: "Yeah, is your Mam all right?"

Invariably, this conversation involves them saying: "Hokey cokey" at some point.

Indeed.

In Millom, happy people sometimes tell you: "I'm bouncing, I am, me."

Matty, the sinewy joiner from next door with a stare so hard that it can kill a horse, has been complaining of being unwell recently.

"I've a saw froat," he growled from beneath his cold weather hoodie.

Saw as in sore and froat as in throat. Sums it up perfectly, in the way only Matty can.