[Julie Steiner]

Amazingly, Google is no help.

M.A. Griffiths made a reference to Roobarb County while responding to comment and critique, re her Geordie dialect poem "Fer Blossom":

***

Wa’all, ’taint the way we do talk down ’ere in Wessexshire, my flower, but it do be genwin Roobarb County – hawhawhaw.

***

I wanted to put a note on the cultural reference here, but I can't figure it out myself. I had thought Roobarb (or Rhubarb) County might be from the American comic strip Li'l Abner, but I can't find anything linking the two.

Ah'm arskin' y'all cuz y'all know Everything. (And it is a vaguely poetry-related request....)

Thanks,
Julie Stoner, who is apparently younger than she thinks

[Patricia A. Marsh]

Possibly: "rube" + "barb" = "roobarb"??

[Julie Steiner]

Yes, I think so, too, but where was it used? Was it part of a British comedy sketch?

BTW, if anyone would like to read Maz's poem:
http://ramblingrose.com/folly/2005_09/ferblossom.html

(I did manage to figure out what "Meltasers" are, all by myself.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltesers

[John Whitworth]

Roobarb is a dog. Any fule no that. He is a green dog with a pink cat (Custard) as his friend.

[Patricia A. Marsh]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Roobarb is a dog. Any fule no that. He is a green dog with a pink cat (Custard) as his friend.

Lardy, lardy! I dint no thet neider --->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roobarb

[Ann Drysdale]

There was a TV cartoon series called "Roobarb and Custard" but she's talking about the dialect.

I think she was just mischievously misspelling rhubarb. If anyone were to ask me which is Britain's rhubarb county, I'd say Yorkshire. I can sort of make Yorkshire dialect out of her phonetics. Did Maz actually claim it was Geordie (ie from Tyneside)?

Here's a link to back up my thinking - and just listen to the local dialect!

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/...-day-1-5909947

[Mary McLean]

I'm with Ann. If you search on rhubarb triangle, you'll find out about the Yorkshire region. Otherwise, no idea what it could be.

[Ann Drysdale]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mary!

Yes, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is what she means. She's "speaking" in pretend Dorset (Hardy's Wessex) dialect (the dialect of rural Poole, as it were) telling her critter that she's writing in a different voice, a voice from somewhere else. A Northern voice. From rhubarb county. From Yorkshire.