Brummagem is a name in the Brummie dialect for the city of Birmingham in England. The origins of the word date back to the time of Middle English, and it is known to have been in widespread use by the time of the Civil War.

It is from this version of the city's name that the terms Brum and Brummie are derived. The former refers to the city itself, and is a generally affectionate term used by locals. The latter refers to inhabitants of the city, their accent and dialect, and frequently to West Midlands accents in general (though not in the West Midlands itself where distinctions are made between Brummie and the accent of the Black Country, for example).

Generalised uses of the term

While the term was originally used purely as a name for Birmingham, it later came to be applied to counterfeit groats (a silver four-pence coin) produced there in the 17th century, when Birmingham was much smaller than it was to become during the Industrial Revolution.

The term briefly passed into political slang in the 1680s. The supporters of the Exclusion Bill were described as Brummagems, on the grounds that they were "sham Protestants"; the Tory opponents were the anti-Birminghams or anti-Brummagems.

In the Victorian era, Birmingham was one of the world's largest industrial cities, and produced a bewildering variety of goods. Many of these were of fine silver and gold quality intended for an ever increasing affluent western world. As a by-product of the more professional jewelry tradesmen of the city a skilled but cheaper mass consumer market for foreign exports thrived, often difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake due to the expertise of the craftsmen of the the age. Costume jewelry, imitation gems, and other produce of the Jewellery Quarter were particularly renowned for their abundance.

External links

• Article on the origin of the term (http://www.virtualbrum.co.uk/brummies.htm) by Carl Chinn