Dot Wordsworth

Why is a ladybird called a ‘bishy barnabee’?

issue 16 November 2019

People in different regions like to think their dialects incomprehensible to outsiders, yet they can usually come up with quite a short list of words that differ from the norm. In Norfolk a favourite is bishy barnabee for ‘ladybird’. Ladybird, as I have mentioned before, refers to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary.

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