Words: parky, adj.

THERE IS distinct rivalry between Yorkshire towns. In urging Knaresborough's merits, the owner of the riverside Marigold cafe contrasted it with Harrogate "which up there, in this wind, will be right parky".

Knaresborough is a proper place, not a Woking, but parky, used all one's life, is elusive. Perhaps of Yorkshire origin, it surfaced in the last century, but there is no apparent link with the parky that means of a park (which comes from Old French and ousted parrock). Nor is there a connection with parka, that repellent item of clothing which, redolent of the Seventies, has been revived by the pop group Oasis and which in fact, as sported by Eskimoes, goes back to the 18th century and is from Russian for skin jacket.

But whence parky?