Talk:Yellowbelly (Lincolnshire)

I have just read all the different ideas and surely the reality is that some of these ideas lead on from the others. Just because one is true it doesn't mean others aren't.

The most likely is the idea that crops like mustard would rub the agricultural workers at waist height. From that would come rumours about changing other metals to gold by placing them on your belly. After that the tunic would reflect the Yellow Belly name. As yellow is always related to cowardice that would start the other sayings.

Does this sort it?

I'm Lincoln born and bred and still live in Lincolnshire. I'm very poud of the people and their attitude. I've never seen cowardice, I have seen many good and honest folk. GDXAHD 19:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Ye Elloe Bellie
The sentence
 * "However, as "ye" was always pronounced "the" this explanation cannot be correct"

makes an interesting point about pronunciation. But I don't feel that it's reasonable to state so emphatically that it prevents the term from being an origin of "YellowBelly".

The words should be heard, not seen, because the term is an old colloquialism and therefore more likely to have been spoken rather than written or printed. In spoken English there is frequently a voiced "y" sound between "the" and a word (usually, but not only, a noun) which begins with a vowel (for example, the arts, the egg, the inquest, the oven, the umbrella) which may eventually lead to a Y being added to the beginning of the noun. Because of that, I've removed the sentence.Twistlethrop (talk) 10:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If you're inclined to re-insert the above sentence about the pronunciation of "ye", please read my comments above.  My statements still hold true, whatever the origin of "Yellowbelly" might be.Twistlethrop (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I hope I've solved this and not made it worse by replacing "ye" with "þe", i.e. using a Thorn (letter) instead of a "y". For good measure I've included a link to that article about thorn. SMeeds (talk) 11:30, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Tidy-up
There have long been Refimprove and Original Research templates on this article. I have in the past provided references for some of the supposed explanations that are listed. I have now removed the templates and the unreferenced items. The ones I have removed are listed below as an archive and in case anyone finds references for any of them in the future: SMeeds (talk) 11:11, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The officers of the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia used to wear bright yellow waistcoats
 * It is a derogatory name, implying that the Fen-dwellers creep around in the mud, and so get yellow bellies.
 * The long under wool of sheep grazing in the Lincolnshire Wolds became discoloured by the yellow clay. (Neither of these can be considered a unique occurrence in Lincolnshire however)
 * The expression is based on the old belief that if a person born in Lincolnshire placed a shilling on their abdomen on retiring to bed and slept flat on their back all night, then the next morning the shilling would have turned into a gold sovereign.
 * The stage coaches that operated in Lincolnshire in times past had yellow body work.
 * Less reputable inhabitants of Cleethorpes may have engaged in a form of piracy. They took torches down to the beach on dark nights and used them to trick passing ships into sailing towards the lights believing it to be the harbour. The ships would hit the shallow waters on the Cleethorpes coast and run aground where they would be raided for their cargo. On one occasion the locals are supposed to have believed they had lured a ship whose cargo had great value, but when they found the cargo was actually a vast amount of yellow flannel material. They could not be seen selling or using the cloth they had stolen so in order not to waste it they made undergarments out of it, so many of the locals were soon in possession of flannel vests and became yellow bellies.