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Janner


Janner is an English regional nickname associated with Plymouth both as a noun and as an adjective for the local accent and colloquialisms. In 1987 Cyril Tawney, in his book Grey Funnel Lines, described its meaning as "a person from Devon", deriving from Cousin Jan (the Devon form of John), but "more particularly in naval circles anyone from the Plymouth area".

'Alf a pound of flour and lard,
Makes a lovely clacker,
Just enough for you and me,
Oh Brother Janner,
Oh 'ow 'appy uz shall be!,
When uz gets to the Westcountry!,
Whur the oggies grows on trees,
Oh Brother Janner.

With the changes in the local economy in Plymouth over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, from the Royal Navy being the major employer to being a university city housing a large number of students from outside the city, the term has developed an additional secondary pejorative sense describing the locals.

The Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Devonport, Alison Seabeck, showed her ignorance of the term in 2005 when, while still a candidate, she was asked by the local paper: "What is a Janner?" The Express on Sunday reported her reply:

The flustered candidate wailed: "I don't know. You're not going to print this, are you?" Unfortunately they did. The answer is a "Plymothian".

For many years there was a cartoon in the Plymouth Evening Herald entitled 'The Janners'. Many pamphlets circulate with mischievous amusing and sometimes erotic anthologies and there are short dictionaries of Janner vocabulary, e.g. the Janner TextBook.


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