For such a small place, Northern Ireland has a wide range of local dialects.

It is a phenomenon that causes communication difficulties within the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) at times.

At a meeting in Plumbridge, Co Tyrone on Saturday, UFU president and north Antrim native Victor Chestnutt remarked how he refers to his farmyard as “the yard” but over in west Fermanagh, his deputy president David Brown calls it “the street”.

A long trench in a field which is filled with twin wall pipe and stones is described as “a drain” by Chestnutt, but Brown calls it “a shore”.

“Where I come from in Co Antrim, the street is in the middle of a town and a shore is beside the seaside,” noted Chestnutt.

Turning to his audience, the UFU president pointed out that small fields near a river are referred to as “homes” in west Tyrone but are known as “meadows” in Antrim.

Thankfully, Chestnutt stopped there and did not launch into the contentious “do you call it a grape, a fork, or a sprong” debate.