Define This Term Please
Does anyone know what (excuse the spelling) "Cranlicking at Tickle Penny Corner" means?
shareHi there. I got this from my uncle who was a Marine.
In England before the Second World War, when the railroad was nationalized by the Labor government, most villages and small towns had a "Tickle Penny Corner" where poor people needing to travel into the cities would go. This would often be in a side street off the main thoroughfare. They would wait on the sidewalk until someone with a station wagon pulled up. There they would negotiate a ride, by "cran-licking". "Cran" or "crane" was the local dialect term for some kind of candy, sometimes called "seaside rock" in the coastal towns.
Hope that helps.
I think someone's being had on here. The phrase is intentionally meaningless. The whole book is a parody of books like "Precious Bane" by Mary Webb, which genre has largely lapsed into obscurity, unless you include Thomas Hardy's novels. Thus most, if not all, the dialect words in the book, such as "scrattling" "guddling" "snood" (when it's a container for porridge) etc, are made up and the names are meant to sound ever so rustic, all of which is faithfully translated to the film, but perhaps it's not so obvious as it is if you read the book.
shareThe phrase was 'scranletting down at Ticklepenny Corner' and I think was supposed to mean ploughing. Reuben says:
'I ha'scranleted two hundred furrows come five o'clock down i' the bute...Two hundred from Ticklepenny's corner to Nettle Flitch... Could you ha' done that?'
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Having just reread the book, I'm quite certain that roarky is correct. From the context it is obvious that scrantletting is plowing.
shareI don't know the other dudes definition sounds plausible to me.
LOL
This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch where Graham Chapman comes into the drawing room, prattling on about "the flywheel's gone out on the treadle."
shareThis reminds me of Kenneth Williams as Rambling Syd Rumpo singing 'The Ballad Of The Woggler's Moulie' full of fake dialect designed for double entendres
"There's a moral to this story
Though your cordwangle be poor -
Keep your hands off others moulies,
For it is against the law...."
You are aware that real treadles use real flywheels, right? In fact Singer still sells treadle sewing machines for areas in the world with spotty or nonexistent electricity.
shareI assume the original one to whom it was told. I'm not surprised no one has picked up on your splendid invention. Most of the posters seem to have missed the point of the film. I suppose Mary Webb is no longer read despite Gone to Earth.
sharemorleys, I've got a copy of Webb's _Precious Bane_ to reread once in awhile-it's been on TV too. It's a genre that's easy to OD on, though.
sharePoor old Yanks, they believe anything.
share