Sometimes you use words and phrases and don't think anything of them…until someone else asks what on earth you are talking about. An example of this is “back-friend”. My family have always used this, from my Dad's side I believe. I have heard my grandparents use it in the past and my Dad uses it. Needless to say it's become part of my vocabulary too, but I never though to look at the origin, and always thought everyone knew what it meant. It was my wife (who hails from Buckinghamshire) who stared blankly at me when I used it the first time, years ago, and it was only then that I started to wonder how many people knew what it was and who didn't. So, a quick Google tonight and I found a brief reference to it on “A Dictionary of Slang and Colloqual English Slang and its Analogues“:-
A splinter of skin formed near the roots of the finger-nail.
I'm still not sure how widely this is used; whether it's an old expression or just maybe regional. Any takers?
Origins of "back-friend"
April 14, 2009 | 13 Comments
March 19, 2012 at 11:12 pm
YES!!! I call them backfriends too!im from the midlands, by the way!
April 27, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Yep, me too. Also known around here by some as bad friends. The bits of skin by the nail. I have always heard it in a Shakespeare play im sure.
April 27, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Ps im west midlands by the way
May 1, 2012 at 4:26 pm
My nan always called them backfriends and she originated from the Black Country
May 17, 2012 at 7:17 am
I just told my colleagues I have one and it is quite painful!! they all
looked at me blankly!! So am glad to find I didnt make it up!! I am
originally from Cornwall and now live in Gloucester.
July 6, 2012 at 3:00 pm
This is what my mum has always called them and she is from Pershore, Worcestershire. Other names I’ve since come across are hangnail and whitlow but no one else I know calls them backfriends!
July 15, 2012 at 5:33 pm
They were what mum always called them too!I have used the word in front of many of my friends before and none of them had a clue what i was on about!Oh,and i too am from the Midlands.Leamington Spa to be precise.
July 20, 2012 at 10:56 am
I have always called them that too. I am from Stoke on Trent.
October 21, 2012 at 12:24 pm
My Dad always laughs at me when I say I have a “back friend”. He told me too google it, so when I found this I was chuffed that I could show him other people use the word also. My nan has always called the stubborn bits of skin around the nail it. Is it just a midlands thing, do you think? (As this is where we are from also)
October 26, 2012 at 11:26 pm
My Grandma from Stoke-on-Trent called them backfriends too. I grew up in South Staffs, but I only ever knew of my North Staffs Grandma calling them that.
November 20, 2012 at 11:50 pm
A “back friend”, sounds so daft when we say it, ;o) my granny used this saying, and she was from shropshire,uk, never heard anyone else say it, until i googled it now..and found you lot….;o) x
February 15, 2013 at 9:46 am
Thought our family was going mad! Thank goodness we’re not alone. From Bristol.
February 26, 2013 at 6:15 pm
My mother always used the expression backfriend. Her father came from Stoke on Trent area but she, like me, was born in Wales