Mackem
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'Mackem' is a term describing someone native to the City of Sunderland, North East England. Alternatives include 'Makem', 'Maccam' or 'Mak'em'. The term came into common use in the 1990s, stemming from the rivalry between Sunderland A.F.C. and Newcastle United F.C..
The origins of the term are somewhat obscure. A common belief is that it was an insult coined by shipyard workers in the 19th century in Newcastle (see Geordie), to describe their Wearside counterparts. The Geordies would 'take' the ship to be fitted out that the Mackems 'made', hence 'mackem and tackem' ("make them" and "take them"). Alternatively, this phrase may refer to the making and tacking into place of rivets in shipbuilding, the main method of assembling ships until the mid-20th century.
However, this is possibly a folk etymology. The Oxford English Dictionary has been unable to locate the term in print before 1988 [1], although "we still 'tak 'em and mak 'em" was found in a sporting context in 1973, implying that the phrase was older, but with nothing to suggest that "mak 'em" had come to be applied to Sunderlanders.
Not all Sunderland residents accept the adoption of the term, pointing out its supposed roots as an insult, and its use as a derisory term by Geordies.
The two cities have a history of rivalry beyond the football pitch, dating back to the early stages of the English Civil War (See Tyne-Wear Rivalry).
The Oxford English Dictionary conducted a search with the BBC to find earlier references for "Mackem" and placed the term on a list of words of obscure origin (See BBC Wordhunt).
Accent
As with 'Geordie' which means both the people and their accent, 'Mackem' has also become a term for the accent spoken by Sunderland residents. The Mackem dialect is very similar to that of the Geordie dialect, and to people from outside of the North-East, they are almost indistinguishable. There are, however, slight variations in pronunciation which are noticeable to most people from within the area.
Pronunciation differences include:
- Words ending in -ook - (Geordie: elongated oo as in 'room'. Cook would rhyme with Spook.), (Mackem: oo is sharpened into an uh sound as in 'stuck' and 'puck'. Cook would ryhme with Muck). Note: Although not in the majority of Mackem speakers, in some areas, this variation is extended to other oo words, such as Food, i.e. Fud.
- Words ending in -own - (Geordie: elongated oo (as above). Town becomes Toon, Down becomes Doon.), (Mackem: similar to standard English, Town rhymes with Frown and Gown).
- Make, Take - (Geordie: ryhmes with cake, bake), (Mackem: becomes Mack and Tack - i.e. this prononciation variation is the supposed reason why Newcastle shipyard workers coined the insult 'Mackem'.)
- School - (Geordie: ryhmes with Cool and Rule), (Mackem: split into two syllables, and a short e sound (as in wet) is added after the oo sound to emphasise the L, i.e. skoo-ell). Note: This is also the case for words ending in -eul such as a 'Cruel' and 'fuel' which are turned into croo-el and few-el, although 'vowel-adding' in this way is also a component of Geordie.
- Words ending -re/-er, such as culture and father. The end syllable as pronounced by Geordies is a short 'a', such as in 'fat' and 'back', producing 'cultcha' and 'fatha'. Natives of Sunderland pronounce the syllable much more closely to the standard English.
A common jibe by Newcastle United supporters during Tyne-Wear derby games is to shake their keys at the Sunderland fans and chant: weese keys are these keys? ("Who's keys are these keys?") with obvious exaggeration of the ee sound in each word. This is in reference to a supposed difference in the prononucation of the words between Mackem and Geordie. This is disputed by many Mackems who claim that the Geordie prononciation is no different.
Other variations:
- Geordies often use a w (as in 'wet') at the end of sentences such as "are you coming with w?" meaning "are you coming with us?" or "are you coming with me?". This is not often used by Mackems.
- Geordies sometimes use the term wor to mean "our", and the term can be used as a predicate to the name of a close person, e.g. a family member (famous Newcastle footballer Jackie Milburn was often called Wor Jackie). Mackems don't use the term wor, but many still use the word our in the same context.