Snotty Nosed Polis
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think this is specific to Jarrow. It means and officious, bad-mannered person, little Hitler , is equivalent in Standard British English. The story from my dad is that Jarrow was the place where all probation coppers were sent to finish their training - I don't know if that was before or after the Northumbria police were established. So the town was infested with nervous, aggressive young people in uniform who didn't belong-Jarra. There was also the phrase, half-a-polis, an insulting term for a park keeper or any official in uniform. The first syllable in polis has a short vowel, like Polly , and the second is schwa + /s/ . [I'm buggered if I can remember the keyboard shortcuts I set ages ago for the IPA. Which is interesting in itself.]