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ric_a5-
Newcastle is far closer to Scotland than the home counties. I don't think there's a hard linguistic border at Berwick.
Half the time we were Scotland. We stole lots of bits from Scotland. But then again they stole lots of bits back from us.
I was quite a way past childhood before I twigged the word I'd always heard as "ben" (as in "give the bens their tea") and the word "bairn" in written Scottish were the same word.
brokenbetty
I first saw it used in Viz circa '87. As in hadaway an' shite. Did the geordies borrow it, just seems to suit the accent so well.