I have been watching a TV show called Vera, I have watched several english TV shows but I think it is the first time I have seen someone using those word to relate to other people. The show is located around the Newcastle area, so is that usual way to talk around the more rural parts? I guess it might be related to age aswell, mainly more used by older women
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Not just Newcastle, but up north. I live in Leeds and have been called both numerous times.
I am from the Newcastle area and I can confirm we use those expressions. I think pet is more specific to us since people from other areas also use love
It was used in the title of a TV comedy too, Auf Weidersehen, Pet
Someone at work is from Newcastle and she calls me pet all the time.
Love is used all over the UK I think, pet is more localised.
We use “love” round here too, the opposite corner of the country. I think it’s nationwide, (apart from Bristol where it’s “my lover”!)
All the north east really.
Also flower.
Yes, it’s normal. Both words are used more commonly than you imagine.
I do associate ‘pet’ with NE England, but it is used elsewhere as well.
In Yorkshire ‘love’ is used between men and men, woman and men, women and women, just as a normal vocative.
Totally normal and not related to age at all. I’m not from that area but have friends who are, and they use both (especially pet) all the time.
Pet is more common in the NE but gets used elsewhere too (for anyone in NE, mostly for a partner or close person in London)
Love is common across the country, but in some areas men use it only to younger/inferior people, the elderly, and maybe women, and never to other men. Some of them don’t realise theyre making a distinction and are still treating women with perfect respect; some men clearly want to treat women differently and get amusingly offended if a woman ‘love’s him back!
Some people (working-class matriarchs aged 50ish) will say love a lot – fiction often has such characters from the NE.
When I was younger, my family used to buy bread at a bakery where the counter was staffed by an older lady from the deep West Country. She’d refer to us as “ooh, my lover”.
It was quite a lot like buying bread from Mrs Miggins Pie Shop (Blackadder).
I get called duck and love in Sheffield a lot, when I’m visiting my Dad. Pet is a bit further north I think.
Love is a colloquialism that’s used across the U.K.
Pet is mostly exclusive to the North East.
( See also Ducky (used quite a lot in Manchester) and Hen used a lot in Glasgow.
Duck is popular in Nottingham too. I’ve been addressed as ‘duck’ buy older men – and I’m a man.
Yes. also in yorkshire everyone is Dear
Yeah, pet, petal, love, flower, are all quite often used in the North East