# better late than never, spuggy.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [October 18, 2001, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177 "2001-10-18T07:40:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JimShaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimShaw)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2001, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177/1 "2001-10-18T07:40:43Z")
While grazing through the archives, I found this little gem
\>What’s the meaning of “Ollie, Ollie oxen go free”?
\>22-Jun-1990
\>“All in, all in, spuggy in the tin.”
\>One might inquire into the meaning of “spuggy,” but one
\>isn’t sure sure one wants to know.
In the southwest of Scotland where I spent some of my
childhood, a spuggy is a sparrow. Quite what Cecil had
in mind I can’t be sure 🙂
Jim.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177/2 "2001-10-18T14:54:33Z")
A link to the column in question is appreciated. [What’s the meaning of “Ollie, Ollie oxen go free”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a900622a.html)
A spuggy is a sparrow? Cool. Or a sparrow hawk, depending on where you live?
[http://www.boglinmarsh.fsnet.co.uk/jungfrau.htm](http://www.boglinmarsh.fsnet.co.uk/jungfrau.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> BLACKPOOL PIGEON FANCY.
> Well now lads and lasses - looking out of my back window I can observe Mr Hawk-ins circling the big tree and he appears to be a little frustrated. This giant seasonally resplendent bower is now reduced to a mere skeleton of branches and the song birds have set up an advance aerial attack warning system. They are high in the sky en-block (or flock) before he has any chance of sneaking a kill. **Old Spuggy** must now hunt his prey amongst the pine needles which are home to the colony of collared doves. I have yet to see the sparrow-hawk make a kill amongst the doves even though they be considerably smaller than my pigeons. No doubt as hunger and survival instincts predominate his actions this will become an inevitable conclusion to their lives!
[http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/GDictionary.htm](http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/GDictionary.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> The Geordie Dictionary
> Spuggy: A sparrow
[http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/ddawords.html](http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/ddawords.html)
> [@](#):
>
> D u r h a m D i a l e c t P r o j e c t
> SPUGGY
> “spuggy - any common-or-garden little bird, not just a sparrow. I remember the kids I taught in Hull in the 70s divided birds into two kinds – spuggies and seagulls; i.e. land birds & sea birds.”
> (JS re Chester-le-Street)
> “to take a spuggy’s ticket - to climb over a fence to get free view of football/cricket match”
> (LG re Seaham mid C20th)
Well, huh. Hey, Unc? I think you need to put an addendum on the column.
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### Author:  [@JimShaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimShaw)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177/3 "2001-10-19T01:12:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> A link to the column in question is appreciated.
I’ll have to learn how to do that 🙂
I’ve never heard ‘spuggy’ used for a sparrow hawk, but there it is, in black and white.
Jim
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### Author:  [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177/4 "2001-10-19T07:46:20Z")
Epigraph to the (Northern British) poet Basil Bunting’s _Briggflatts_: “Son los pasariellos del mal pelo exidos”, translated by BB as “The spuggies are fledged”. His gloss is “little sparrows”.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/better-late-than-never-spuggy/88177/5 "2001-10-19T14:10:18Z")
Welcome to the Straight Dope, JimShaw! We are a message board composed of ignorance-fighting skeptics, and Lesson #1 around here is, “Just because it’s posted on the Web doesn’t make it gospel”.
By which I mean–eh, don’t get _too_ excited because some pigeon-fancier in Blackpool thinks “spuggy” means “sparrow hawk” rather than “sparrow”. He could be dead wrong.
If I saw a few more websites that said the same thing, then I’d start to believe it. I just posted it, well, because that’s what we do here, is post web links and play “Battling Cites”.
If you want to know how to do links and quotes and things, you can peruse the [vB code](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode) page. Or you can hit the “Quote” button on someone’s post and it will show all the coding when it appears in the Reply window.
But, a link to the column doesn’t have to be fancy-schmancy coded with blue print–you can just Copy and Paste the URL from the address window into your Reply window, and vB will automatically make it into a link. We’re grownups, we can handle a link that goes “http://” instead of cute blue words. The important thing is just to get the URL there so we can all know what you’re talking about.