Brummagem ( ), and historically also Bromichan, Bremicham and many similar variants, is the local name for the city of Birmingham, England, and the dialect associated with it. It gave rise to the terms Brum (a shortened version of Brummagem) and Brummie (applied to inhabitants of the city, their accent and dialect). "Brummagem" and "Brummagem ware" are also terms for cheap and shoddy imitations, in particular when referring to mass-produced goods. This use is archaic in the UK, but persists in some specialist areas in the US and Australia. History The word appeared in the Middle Ages as a variant on the older and coexisting form of Birmingham (spelled Bermingeham in Domesday Book), and was in widespread use by the time of the Civil War. 17th century The term's pejorative use appears to have originated with the city's brief 17th-century reputation for counterfeited groats. Birmingham's expanding metal industries included the manufacture of weapons. In 1636, one Benjamin Stone petitioned that a large number of swords, which he claimed to have made, should be purchased for the use in the King's service; but in 1637, the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, in London, countered this by stating that these were actually "bromedgham blades" and foreign blades, and that the former "are no way serviceable or fit for his Majesty's store". John F. Hayward, an experienced historian on swords, suggests that London's snobbery towards these blades at that time "may have been due to" commercial rivalry; at that time London was the largest provider of weapons in Britain, and Birmingham was fast becoming a viable commercial threat to their trade. The word passed into political slang in the 1680s. The Protestant supporters of the Exclusion Bill were called by their opponents Birminghams or Brummagems (a slur, in allusion to counterfeiting, implying hypocrisy). Their Tory opponents were known as anti-Birminghams or anti-Brummagems. Around 1690 Alexander Missen, visiting Bromichan in his travels, said that "swords, heads of canes, snuff-boxes, and other fine works of steel," could be had, "cheaper and better here than even in famed Milan." Guy Miege, in The New State of England (1691), wrote: "Bromicham is a large and well-built Town, very populous, and much resorted unto; particularly noted, few years ago, for the counterfeit Groats made here, and from hence dispersed all over the Kingdom." 18th century During the 18th century Birmingham was known by several variations of the name "Brummagem".