GAWBER ruttles! You've widened my education and topped up the store of weird and wonderful sayings since my last column.

Stirred by whim-whams for ducks' bridles and pots calling kettles black, readers responded in style to my appeal for favourite colloquialisms.

Janette, of Burton, was among those with fond memories of our disappearing local dialect. "Well," she wrote, "a bin raidin wot yuh wrote and fun it quite interesting but ah got goo now and peg th'weshing out for it reens."

Scott, of Derby, nominated an old warning not to shed winter clothing too early in the year – "cast ne'er a clout 'til May is out".

Another www.thisisderby shire.co.uk visitor said that, although he left Derby a decade ago, he still used "nesh" to describe people who found it cold when others were warm.

Andrew, of Etwall, was quick to enlighten us: "'Nesh' is from Old English 'hnesce', meaning tender," he said.

"I always thought it was more of a North Staffs word – and so is 'surry'. Since moving to Derbyshire from Staffs I've been fascinated by the dialect similarities and differences."

Nick Wheat, of Dronfield, mourned the demise of a phrase once common in north Derbyshire – "to make Killamarsh Fender", meaning to huddle up with your family around the fire for warmth".

More pure Derbyshire came from Sally, of Belper, with her grandfather's favourite joke:

Man: "Where's mi shot? Where's mi shot?"

Wife: "Shert!"

Man: "Aahve sherted twice, woman!"

Sue Farthing, of Oakwood, recalled sitting on the doorstep as a child and being told by her mum: "You'll get a chin cough on a cold step."

"I never knew what a chin cough was," said Sue. "But as I got older, I assumed it was piles – so lord knows where the saying came from. I have mentioned this to friends in Derby and Nottingham and nobody claims to have heard it. My mum was an Allestree girl, born in 1921, and dad a true Derbeian born in 1909. I was born in 1952, so whether that saying was just local or common to that period, I do not know."

Similarly mystified was Viv Wigley, who recalled: "When I was a child, on a daily basis I would ask my mother what was for dinner. Her standard reply was, 'Duck under the table and jamb on the door.' I never did get round to asking where it came from… then again, she was a Dublin lass."

Fellow Evening Telegraph columnist Anton Rippon never fathomed what his mother meant when he'd ask what was for dinner. "A run round the table and a kick at the pantry door," she'd say, or "a bit of bread and pull it".

Anton also offered a variation of one of my favourite oddities – "he/she used to chew bread of for ducks" – but merely confused me further with: "My dad's a masticator at the hospital. He chews the bread for the poultices."

"It's a bit black o'er Bill's mother's" (meaning rain is on the way) struck a chord with Peter Haslam, whose mother-in-law would say, when she hoped it was brightening up a bit: "There's a bit of blue o'er Bill's mother's."

Taking up the weather theme, Dave, of Derby, declared: "Wossamarrawiya? A birra rain ne'er 'ert no-one!"

Peter also offered a variation of "going to the foot of our stairs" as an expression of surprise. His dad used to say: "Well, I'll go to Shottle."

"He was from several generations of Derbyshire folk but his mother came from Huddersfield. Shottle is certainly in Derbyshire but why going there should be so surprising, I never understood."

He also recalled this bedtime wish from childhood: "Night night, sweet repose, hope the flies don't tickle your nose."

And I particularly liked his mum-in-law's sceptical observation when someone was claiming wide support for some statement, or saying how many people had been at an event. "Oh yes," she'd say, "our cat and another, I suppose."

Being common as muck, I'd not expected a contribution from the world of opera. But fellow Ilkestonian Peter Featherstone shone light on one old saying with the help of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Peter, who has a lead role in Princess Ida, at Derby's Guildhall next week, quoted the judge in Trial by Jury, explaining how he rose to an eminent position by marrying a rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter, who "may very well pass for 43 in the dusk with the light behind her".

Thanks for all your contributions. Please keep them coming.

I'll leave you with a real gem, from John Weston, of Breedon-on-the-Hill. He still remembers the day 80 years ago when his father, a quarryman, said of another villager walking down the street in Tonge: "That chap's got gawber ruttles."

"Whatever's gawber ruttles?" asked John.

His dad replied: "Two stomachs for eating and never a one for work."