Word of the week: Ginnel

This week’s word is another northern english dialect word you don’t hear much of nowadays.

A ginnel is a narrow passage between buildings. Where they still stand, old rows of terraced houses are often broken up by ginnels, every few houses. This allowed people access to the rear of terraced for bin collections, deliveries of coal and so on.

Now the word is falling into misuse, other terms are used. Back passage is one of them. Personally I’d rather have my coal delivered through the ginnel, rather than having two hundredweight of nutty slack delivered up my back passage.