ABBREVIATIONSBck.=Bucks.Bdf.=Bedford.Bnff.=Banff.Brks.=Berks.Chs.= Cheshire.Cmb.=Cambridge.Cor.= Cornwall.Cth.=Carmarthen.Cum.= Cumberland.Cy.= country.Der.=Derby.Dev.=Devon.Dnb.=Denbigh.Dor.= Dorset.Dur.= Durham.e.An.= East Anglia.Ess.= Essex.Glo.=Gloucester.Hmp.= Hampshire.Hnt.=Huntingdon.Hrf.=Hereford.Hrt.=Hertford.I.Ma.= Isle of Man.Irel.= Ireland.I.W.= Isle of Wight.Ken.= Kent.Lakel.= Lakeland.Lan.= Lancashire.Lei.=Leicester.Lin.=Lincoln.lit.= literary.M.E.= Middle English.Mid.= Middlesex.Midl.= Midlands.Nhb.= Northumberland.Nhp.=Northampton.Not.=Nottingham.Nrf.= Norfolk.O.E.= Old English.O.N.= Old Norse.Or.I.= Orkney Isles.Oxf.=Oxford.Pem.=Pembroke.Rut.= Rutland.Sc.= Scotland.Sh.I.= Shetland Isles.Shr.= Shropshire.Som.=Somerset.Stf.=Stafford.Suf.= Suffolk.Sur.= Surrey.Sus.= Sussex.Wal.= Wales.War.=Warwick.Wil.= Wiltshire.Wm.= Westmorland.Wor.=Worcester.Yks.=Yorks.The asterisk * prefixed to a word denotes a theoretical form.
The asterisk * prefixed to a word denotes a theoretical form.
INTRODUCTIONAmong common errors still persisting in the minds of educated people, one error which dies very hard is the theory that a dialect is an arbitrary distortion of the mother tongue, a wilful mispronunciation of the sounds, and disregard of the syntax of a standard language. Only quite recently—May 5, 1910—in reviewing a book calledThe Anglo-Irish Language, a writer in theTimes Literary Supplementsays: ‘The Anglo-Irish dialect is a passably good name for it ..., but it is something more than a dialect, more than an affair of Pidgin English, bad spelling, provincialisms, and preposterous grammar.’ Here we have a very good modern instance of the old error. A dialect, we are to understand, consists of ‘Pidgin English, bad spelling, provincialisms, and preposterous grammar’. This comes of reading dialect stories by authors who have no personal knowledge of any dialect whatever, and who have never studied any language scientifically. All they have done, perhaps, is to have purchased the Dialect Glossary of some district, or maybe they have asked a friend to supply a little local colouring. A lady once wrote to the Secretary of the English Dialect Society as follows: ‘Dear Sir, a friend of mine intends writing a novel, the scene of which is to be laid in Essex in the sixteenth century. Will you kindly give her a few hints as to the local dialect of that period?’ Authors of this type put into the mouths of their dialect-speaking characters a kind of doggerel which the above definition aptly describes, their readers then run away with the idea that this hotch-potch is the ‘spit and image’ of a real, living, English dialect. As a matter of fact, our English dialects exemplify so well the sound-laws of living speech, and the historicaldevelopment of an originally inflected language, that the Neuphilologen in Germany are calling for Dialect Reading Books for German students studying English. A Professor in the University of Giessen has just bought fifty copies of Wright’sGrammar of the English Dialectsfor his Seminar. Now and then a solitary German student is sent over to England to encamp in a remote country village and write a learned Dissertation on the characteristic vowel-sounds of the district; an arduous task for a young foreigner whose knowledge of literary English as she is spoke is an uncertain quantity. But the field of English dialects offers other allurements besides those which attract the philologist and the grammarian. The language-specialist merely digs and quarries, as it were, in the bare soil and rock, where he finds rich ores amply sufficient to repay his pains and toil, but there remains plenty of room for the rest of us who are less laboriously inclined, and at every turn are enticing paths. The real charm lies in the fact that it is a ‘faire felde ful of folke’, natural, homely, witty folk. If this book succeeds in pointing out a few of the many ways in which the study of our English dialects may not only contribute to the advancement of knowledge, but also give us a clearer insight into the life and character of the British peasant and artisan, it will have achieved the aim and object of its existence.‘Countryman.We old men are old chronicles, and when our tongues go they are not clocks to tell only the time present, but large books unclasped; and our speeches, like leaves turned over and over, discover wonders that are long since past.’The Great Frost of January, 1608.Social England Illustrated, A Collection ofXVIIthCentury Tracts,p.166.
Among common errors still persisting in the minds of educated people, one error which dies very hard is the theory that a dialect is an arbitrary distortion of the mother tongue, a wilful mispronunciation of the sounds, and disregard of the syntax of a standard language. Only quite recently—May 5, 1910—in reviewing a book calledThe Anglo-Irish Language, a writer in theTimes Literary Supplementsays: ‘The Anglo-Irish dialect is a passably good name for it ..., but it is something more than a dialect, more than an affair of Pidgin English, bad spelling, provincialisms, and preposterous grammar.’ Here we have a very good modern instance of the old error. A dialect, we are to understand, consists of ‘Pidgin English, bad spelling, provincialisms, and preposterous grammar’. This comes of reading dialect stories by authors who have no personal knowledge of any dialect whatever, and who have never studied any language scientifically. All they have done, perhaps, is to have purchased the Dialect Glossary of some district, or maybe they have asked a friend to supply a little local colouring. A lady once wrote to the Secretary of the English Dialect Society as follows: ‘Dear Sir, a friend of mine intends writing a novel, the scene of which is to be laid in Essex in the sixteenth century. Will you kindly give her a few hints as to the local dialect of that period?’ Authors of this type put into the mouths of their dialect-speaking characters a kind of doggerel which the above definition aptly describes, their readers then run away with the idea that this hotch-potch is the ‘spit and image’ of a real, living, English dialect. As a matter of fact, our English dialects exemplify so well the sound-laws of living speech, and the historicaldevelopment of an originally inflected language, that the Neuphilologen in Germany are calling for Dialect Reading Books for German students studying English. A Professor in the University of Giessen has just bought fifty copies of Wright’sGrammar of the English Dialectsfor his Seminar. Now and then a solitary German student is sent over to England to encamp in a remote country village and write a learned Dissertation on the characteristic vowel-sounds of the district; an arduous task for a young foreigner whose knowledge of literary English as she is spoke is an uncertain quantity. But the field of English dialects offers other allurements besides those which attract the philologist and the grammarian. The language-specialist merely digs and quarries, as it were, in the bare soil and rock, where he finds rich ores amply sufficient to repay his pains and toil, but there remains plenty of room for the rest of us who are less laboriously inclined, and at every turn are enticing paths. The real charm lies in the fact that it is a ‘faire felde ful of folke’, natural, homely, witty folk. If this book succeeds in pointing out a few of the many ways in which the study of our English dialects may not only contribute to the advancement of knowledge, but also give us a clearer insight into the life and character of the British peasant and artisan, it will have achieved the aim and object of its existence.
‘Countryman.We old men are old chronicles, and when our tongues go they are not clocks to tell only the time present, but large books unclasped; and our speeches, like leaves turned over and over, discover wonders that are long since past.’The Great Frost of January, 1608.Social England Illustrated, A Collection ofXVIIthCentury Tracts,p.166.
‘Countryman.We old men are old chronicles, and when our tongues go they are not clocks to tell only the time present, but large books unclasped; and our speeches, like leaves turned over and over, discover wonders that are long since past.’
The Great Frost of January, 1608.Social England Illustrated, A Collection ofXVIIthCentury Tracts,p.166.
CHAPTER IDIALECT SPEAKERSInsignificance of LondonWith the spread of education, and the ever-increasing means of rapid locomotion throughout the length and breadth of the land, the area where pure dialects are spoken is lessening year by year. It used to be Mam and Dad and Porridge, and then ’twas Father and Mother and Broth, but now ’tis Pa and Ma and Soup, is a saying concerning farmers’ children in the Midlands. In the words of an old North-country woman: T’young ’uns dizn’t talk noo leyke what they did when ah wer a lass; there’s ower mich o’ this knackin’ [affected talk] noo; bud, as ah tells ’em, fooaks spoils thersens sadly wi’ knackin’. An’ then there’s another thing, when deean, they can mak nowt bud mashelshon [mixed corn] on’t. There is a very old proverb in Cheshire, applied to any one who goes out of the country for improvement, and returns without having gained much; such a one is said to have ‘been at London to learn to call a streea a straw’. It is not often now that one could hear it said: Ah deean’t gan bauboskin’ [straying away] aboot leyke sum on ’em, ah sticks ti t’heeaf. The place where a mountain or fell sheep is born, and where it continues to live and pasture, is called itsheaf, and the word is often in the Northern counties thus picturesquely used in a figurative sense. When one looks at the placards announcing in large letters the extraordinarily cheap day trips offered by the Great Western or the Midland Railway, or sees hoardings decorated with garish posters portraying the arid sands and cloudless skies of Blackpool or Morecambe, how dim and distant seem those past days when in their stead he who runs might read an advertisement such as this: ‘The York four-days Stage Coach begins on Friday the 12th of April. All thatare desirous to pass from London to York, or from York to London, or any other place on that road, let them repair to the Black Swan in Holborn, or to the Black Swan in Conney Street in York, at both which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the whole journey in four days (if God permits), and sets forth at five in the morning.’ Small wonder if people then stuck to their heaf, and dialects remained pure and unadulterated. But even to-day one can still find country places where our great cities are known only by name. The inhabitants may ask us casually: Hoo’s traade doon London waay?—but you feel, in so doing, they merely wish to make polite conversation. Two or three years ago we lunched at a small village inn not far from Skipton in Yorkshire, and before leaving the landlord asked us to write our names in his visitors’ book. When we had finished, he read over the entry, and said, ‘Ah, you come from Oxford, perhaps you know London?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ we said, ‘we go to London sometimes.’ ‘Then you’ll happen know my brother,’ was the confident rejoinder. This last summer we stayed at a most primitive inn—with a courtesy title of Hotel—on the moors under the shadow of Penyghent. The landlord fetched us and our luggage from the station, and as he was uncording a box of books he observed, ‘You come from Oxford then.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, feeling proud of my connexion with that ancient Seat of Learning. ‘Oh!’ said mine host of the Golden Lion, ‘How’s hay down there?’The Yorkshire BiteTo gain the full benefit and enjoyment of a sojourn in a country village, it is an immense advantage to be able to speak the dialect yourself, or at any rate to be able to understand and respect it. That is why we prefer the West Riding of Yorkshire to any other part of England, for there we are at home with the native, and are not looked upon as ‘foreigners’. The name Yorkshire has become a synonym for acuteness not unmixed with a touch of unscrupulousness. In Lincolnshire, for example, when anything is done whichis very clever, sharp, or unscrupulous, they say: That’s real Yerksheer. To put Yorkshire on a person means in Lancashire to cheat, trick, or overreach him; in Lancashire and Lincolnshire a sharp overreaching person is called a Yorkshire bite. Even in his own country the Yorkshireman has this reputation. It was a native who told us the following story. Two Yorkshiremen, whom we will call A. and B., were accustomed to send their horses to the same Show. A.’s horse always won prizes, and B.’s never did. One day B. complained to A. ‘I can’t think why Mr. So-and-so (the judge) never gives me a First Prize; my horse is every bit as good as yours.’ ‘Well,’ said A., ‘I tell you what you had better do before the next Show; you send Mr. So-and-so a good big ham.’ The day came, and this time it was B.’s horse that won the First Prize. A. was both angry and astonished. He went to B. and asked: ‘Did you send that ham?’ ‘Yes,’ said B., ‘but I sent it in your name, not mine.’ Another Yorkshireman on his death-bed found satisfaction in the thought that he had outwitted an Insurance Company. ‘Ah’ve dun ’em, Joe, ah’ve dun ’em. T’doctor says ah’m bahn [I am going] to dee, an’ ah wor nobbud insiured six munths sin,’ he boasted to a sympathizing friend. It would, however, be grossly unfair to judge the Yorkshireman on the strength of this proverbial characteristic. He has very many other qualities equally characteristic and much more desirable, but which become famed in phrase and story only when found in an exaggerated form, as for instance the tenacity of purpose shown by that celebratedYorkshire OddityWilliam Sharp, popularly known as Old Three Laps, who died in the year 1856. When a young man of thirty he became engaged to be married. The wedding-day was fixed, but when the appointed hour came, only the bridegroom appeared in church. At the last moment the bride’s father, dissatisfied about the marriage settlements, refused to allow his daughter to marry the man of her choice. The disappointed bridegroom returned to his home, went to bed, and vowedhe would stay there, and never speak again to any one. He kept his word up to the time of his death, forty-nine years later, when he is said to have exclaimed shortly before his end, ‘Poor Bill! poor Bill! poor Bill Sharp!’ A Yorkshireman has a very strong sense of his own dignity, and some ‘South-country’ people mistake his attitude of independence for impertinence, and because he will not brook a condescending manner or a dictatorial speech, and because he says exactly what he means, they style him rude. Many stories are told of a certain grocer in Settle noted for his treatment of impertinent customers. A lady one day walked into his shop and inquired very abruptly: ‘What are eggs to-day?’ ‘Eggs,’ was the prompt reply. At Kettlewell once a man and his wife, evidently on a cycling tour from ‘down South’, came into the inn, and demanded tea in such peremptory tones, that the landlady turned her back on them, and we heard them muttering: ‘She’s bound to give us something.’ If you want to be well served at a Yorkshire inn, the first thing to do is to take note of the name over the door before you cross the threshold; then you can address the landlady as ‘Mrs. Atkinson’ (pronouncedAtkisson), for you will need her name constantly, if you wish your conversation to be agreeable to her. ‘Down South’ we are very chary in our use of proper names in conversation; we can talk to an acquaintance or a friend by the hour addressing him only as ‘you’. In the North, we should intersperse our remarks freely with ‘Mr. Brown’ if he is an acquaintance, or ‘John’ if he is a friend. It is a noticeable fact that in the North men call each other by their Christian names, where in the South they would use the surname without the formal Mr. But to return to inns. Having duly passed the time of day with the landlady, you will next have to converse with her serving-maid, whose name has yet to be discovered. We have adopted a plan of addressing her always as ‘Mary’, till she gives us better information. The last damsel we thus met told us her name was Dinah, and further, that she was ‘a Lancashirelass’. In Yorkshire if you ask a person his or her name you must say: ‘What do they call you?’ You might not be understood if you said: ‘What is your name?’ The first question in the Catechism has often met with no response other than a vacant stare from children in Sunday Schools. A story is told of a clergyman near Whitby who went one day into the village school, and seeing a new face among the boys, said: ‘Well, my lad, and who are you?’ Boy: ‘Aw, ah’s middlin’; hoo’s yoursen?’Tea in the ParlourThe Kettlewell landlady was so charmed by our greeting, and our use of her name and her dialect, that on our very first visit she treated us to her old family silver tea-spoons, and on the next occasion we not only had the tea-spoons, but we had a real old Queen Anne silver teapot as well, and a perfect feast of cakes, laid out in the private parlour where the foot of the tripper never trod. We came upon an inn full of trippers once, and though we were shown to a seat at a table, we could get no further attention, for nobody seemed to have time to fetch us any lunch. At last we secured the ear of the daughter of the house, and we pleaded our cause in her native tongue, whereupon she quickly fetched her parents, and the table was laid, and spread with ample fare in the twinkling of an eye.In a seventeenth-century Tract—Of Recreations—in which are put forth the delights of ‘riding with a good horse and a good companion, in the spring or summer season, into the country’, the author goes on to tell us: ‘And if you happen, as often it falleth out, to converse with countrymen of the place; you shall find them, for the most part, understanding enough to give you satisfaction: and sometimes country maids and market wenches will give as unhappy answers as they be asked knavish and uncivil questions. Others there be, who, out of their rustical simplicity, will afford you matter of mirth, if you stay to talk with them.’
Insignificance of London
With the spread of education, and the ever-increasing means of rapid locomotion throughout the length and breadth of the land, the area where pure dialects are spoken is lessening year by year. It used to be Mam and Dad and Porridge, and then ’twas Father and Mother and Broth, but now ’tis Pa and Ma and Soup, is a saying concerning farmers’ children in the Midlands. In the words of an old North-country woman: T’young ’uns dizn’t talk noo leyke what they did when ah wer a lass; there’s ower mich o’ this knackin’ [affected talk] noo; bud, as ah tells ’em, fooaks spoils thersens sadly wi’ knackin’. An’ then there’s another thing, when deean, they can mak nowt bud mashelshon [mixed corn] on’t. There is a very old proverb in Cheshire, applied to any one who goes out of the country for improvement, and returns without having gained much; such a one is said to have ‘been at London to learn to call a streea a straw’. It is not often now that one could hear it said: Ah deean’t gan bauboskin’ [straying away] aboot leyke sum on ’em, ah sticks ti t’heeaf. The place where a mountain or fell sheep is born, and where it continues to live and pasture, is called itsheaf, and the word is often in the Northern counties thus picturesquely used in a figurative sense. When one looks at the placards announcing in large letters the extraordinarily cheap day trips offered by the Great Western or the Midland Railway, or sees hoardings decorated with garish posters portraying the arid sands and cloudless skies of Blackpool or Morecambe, how dim and distant seem those past days when in their stead he who runs might read an advertisement such as this: ‘The York four-days Stage Coach begins on Friday the 12th of April. All thatare desirous to pass from London to York, or from York to London, or any other place on that road, let them repair to the Black Swan in Holborn, or to the Black Swan in Conney Street in York, at both which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the whole journey in four days (if God permits), and sets forth at five in the morning.’ Small wonder if people then stuck to their heaf, and dialects remained pure and unadulterated. But even to-day one can still find country places where our great cities are known only by name. The inhabitants may ask us casually: Hoo’s traade doon London waay?—but you feel, in so doing, they merely wish to make polite conversation. Two or three years ago we lunched at a small village inn not far from Skipton in Yorkshire, and before leaving the landlord asked us to write our names in his visitors’ book. When we had finished, he read over the entry, and said, ‘Ah, you come from Oxford, perhaps you know London?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ we said, ‘we go to London sometimes.’ ‘Then you’ll happen know my brother,’ was the confident rejoinder. This last summer we stayed at a most primitive inn—with a courtesy title of Hotel—on the moors under the shadow of Penyghent. The landlord fetched us and our luggage from the station, and as he was uncording a box of books he observed, ‘You come from Oxford then.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, feeling proud of my connexion with that ancient Seat of Learning. ‘Oh!’ said mine host of the Golden Lion, ‘How’s hay down there?’
The Yorkshire Bite
To gain the full benefit and enjoyment of a sojourn in a country village, it is an immense advantage to be able to speak the dialect yourself, or at any rate to be able to understand and respect it. That is why we prefer the West Riding of Yorkshire to any other part of England, for there we are at home with the native, and are not looked upon as ‘foreigners’. The name Yorkshire has become a synonym for acuteness not unmixed with a touch of unscrupulousness. In Lincolnshire, for example, when anything is done whichis very clever, sharp, or unscrupulous, they say: That’s real Yerksheer. To put Yorkshire on a person means in Lancashire to cheat, trick, or overreach him; in Lancashire and Lincolnshire a sharp overreaching person is called a Yorkshire bite. Even in his own country the Yorkshireman has this reputation. It was a native who told us the following story. Two Yorkshiremen, whom we will call A. and B., were accustomed to send their horses to the same Show. A.’s horse always won prizes, and B.’s never did. One day B. complained to A. ‘I can’t think why Mr. So-and-so (the judge) never gives me a First Prize; my horse is every bit as good as yours.’ ‘Well,’ said A., ‘I tell you what you had better do before the next Show; you send Mr. So-and-so a good big ham.’ The day came, and this time it was B.’s horse that won the First Prize. A. was both angry and astonished. He went to B. and asked: ‘Did you send that ham?’ ‘Yes,’ said B., ‘but I sent it in your name, not mine.’ Another Yorkshireman on his death-bed found satisfaction in the thought that he had outwitted an Insurance Company. ‘Ah’ve dun ’em, Joe, ah’ve dun ’em. T’doctor says ah’m bahn [I am going] to dee, an’ ah wor nobbud insiured six munths sin,’ he boasted to a sympathizing friend. It would, however, be grossly unfair to judge the Yorkshireman on the strength of this proverbial characteristic. He has very many other qualities equally characteristic and much more desirable, but which become famed in phrase and story only when found in an exaggerated form, as for instance the tenacity of purpose shown by that celebratedYorkshire OddityWilliam Sharp, popularly known as Old Three Laps, who died in the year 1856. When a young man of thirty he became engaged to be married. The wedding-day was fixed, but when the appointed hour came, only the bridegroom appeared in church. At the last moment the bride’s father, dissatisfied about the marriage settlements, refused to allow his daughter to marry the man of her choice. The disappointed bridegroom returned to his home, went to bed, and vowedhe would stay there, and never speak again to any one. He kept his word up to the time of his death, forty-nine years later, when he is said to have exclaimed shortly before his end, ‘Poor Bill! poor Bill! poor Bill Sharp!’ A Yorkshireman has a very strong sense of his own dignity, and some ‘South-country’ people mistake his attitude of independence for impertinence, and because he will not brook a condescending manner or a dictatorial speech, and because he says exactly what he means, they style him rude. Many stories are told of a certain grocer in Settle noted for his treatment of impertinent customers. A lady one day walked into his shop and inquired very abruptly: ‘What are eggs to-day?’ ‘Eggs,’ was the prompt reply. At Kettlewell once a man and his wife, evidently on a cycling tour from ‘down South’, came into the inn, and demanded tea in such peremptory tones, that the landlady turned her back on them, and we heard them muttering: ‘She’s bound to give us something.’ If you want to be well served at a Yorkshire inn, the first thing to do is to take note of the name over the door before you cross the threshold; then you can address the landlady as ‘Mrs. Atkinson’ (pronouncedAtkisson), for you will need her name constantly, if you wish your conversation to be agreeable to her. ‘Down South’ we are very chary in our use of proper names in conversation; we can talk to an acquaintance or a friend by the hour addressing him only as ‘you’. In the North, we should intersperse our remarks freely with ‘Mr. Brown’ if he is an acquaintance, or ‘John’ if he is a friend. It is a noticeable fact that in the North men call each other by their Christian names, where in the South they would use the surname without the formal Mr. But to return to inns. Having duly passed the time of day with the landlady, you will next have to converse with her serving-maid, whose name has yet to be discovered. We have adopted a plan of addressing her always as ‘Mary’, till she gives us better information. The last damsel we thus met told us her name was Dinah, and further, that she was ‘a Lancashirelass’. In Yorkshire if you ask a person his or her name you must say: ‘What do they call you?’ You might not be understood if you said: ‘What is your name?’ The first question in the Catechism has often met with no response other than a vacant stare from children in Sunday Schools. A story is told of a clergyman near Whitby who went one day into the village school, and seeing a new face among the boys, said: ‘Well, my lad, and who are you?’ Boy: ‘Aw, ah’s middlin’; hoo’s yoursen?’
Tea in the Parlour
The Kettlewell landlady was so charmed by our greeting, and our use of her name and her dialect, that on our very first visit she treated us to her old family silver tea-spoons, and on the next occasion we not only had the tea-spoons, but we had a real old Queen Anne silver teapot as well, and a perfect feast of cakes, laid out in the private parlour where the foot of the tripper never trod. We came upon an inn full of trippers once, and though we were shown to a seat at a table, we could get no further attention, for nobody seemed to have time to fetch us any lunch. At last we secured the ear of the daughter of the house, and we pleaded our cause in her native tongue, whereupon she quickly fetched her parents, and the table was laid, and spread with ample fare in the twinkling of an eye.
In a seventeenth-century Tract—Of Recreations—in which are put forth the delights of ‘riding with a good horse and a good companion, in the spring or summer season, into the country’, the author goes on to tell us: ‘And if you happen, as often it falleth out, to converse with countrymen of the place; you shall find them, for the most part, understanding enough to give you satisfaction: and sometimes country maids and market wenches will give as unhappy answers as they be asked knavish and uncivil questions. Others there be, who, out of their rustical simplicity, will afford you matter of mirth, if you stay to talk with them.’
CHAPTER IIRICH AND EXPRESSIVE VOCABULARYIt is generally supposed that the vocabulary of dialect-speaking people is very small; indeed, it has been stated as a scientific fact that the common rustic uses scarcely more than 300 words. The most cursory glance at theEnglish Dialect Dictionary, however, will suffice to convince anybody that this statement is incorrect. The six volumes of this Dictionary contain in all over 5,000 pages, and the number of simple and compound words in the first volume (A-C) is 17,519; and from the careful statistics given of the contents of this volume, it may safely be inferred that the whole Dictionary contains over 100,000 words.As may be expected, we find in this vocabulary an immense variety of terms or phrases for expressing one and the same idea. For instance, there are approximately 1,350 words meaning to give a person a thrashing, and an almost innumerable quantity meaning to die, and to get drunk. There are some 1,300 ways of telling a person he is a fool. A few names taken at random are: chuffin head, coof, gapus, gauvison, goostrumnoodle, Jerry pattick, mee-maw, ning-nang, nornigig, rockey-codlin, Sammy-suck-egg, snool, stooky, Tom-coddy, yawney, yonnack. A fine cumulative effect is produced by a few introductory adjectives, with or without a final pronoun, in such personal remarks as: Thoo goffeny goavey, it’s thoo at’s daft Watty; You drumble-drone, dunder-headed slinpole; Thah gert, gawmless, sackless, headed fooil thah. There are about 1,050 terms for a slattern, such as: daffock, dawps, drazzle-drozzle, flammakin, hagmahush, lirrox, mad Moll o’ the woods, mawkin, moggy, rubbacrock, slammock or slommocks, trail-tengs, trash-mire, wally-draigle.Names for the Smallest PigAmong animals possessing a large variety of names the smallest pig of a litter holds a very prominent place with over 120 titles to distinction, such as: Anthony-pig, cadme, Daniel, dilling (a very old word fordarling, occurring in Cotgrave’sDictionaryand Burton’sAnatomy of Melancholy), greck, little Josey, Nicholas, nisgal, pedman, ritling, runt, squab, treseltrype, wrenock. That handsome bird the hickwall, or green woodpecker,Gecinus viridis, figures under almost every letter of the alphabet; whilst the sparrow and the stickleback also rank high on the list. Among flowers, the ox-eye daisy and the foxglove have the largest number of different names. The foxglove is called: fairy fingers, fairy glove, fairy petticoats, fairy thimbles, witches’ thimbles, bloody man’s fingers, dead man’s bells, flop-a-dock, poppy-dock, pop-guns,&c.,&c.One would fain find in Thormantle, or Thor’s-mantle, a trace of ancient mythology, but the most probable explanation of the term is that it is a corruption oftormentilfromPotentilla Tormentilla, a flower which shares with the foxglove the name Thor’s-mantle.Names for a BrookIt would be an interesting experiment to try and trace out geographically the use of the various words denoting a stream of water: beck, burn, dike, sike, strype, water,&c.,&c.TheNew English Dictionarytells us thatbeckis ‘the ordinary name in those parts of England from Lincolnshire to Cumberland which were occupied by the Danes and Norwegians’. Another authority, Mr. Oliver Heslop, says: ‘This term, which is found in Danish and Norwegian settlements in England, occurs about sixty-three times in the county of Durham. In Northumberland it is represented in the solitary case of the River Wansbeck, and in this it is questionable whether the second syllable is originally beck,’ and further: ‘The line dividing the more northern burn from thes.Dur.andYks.beck is a sharp one. It runs along the ridge between Wear and Tees from Burnhope Seat eastwards to Paw Law Pike. The tributaries to the Wear, on then.side of this ridge, are burns, and the similar affluents to the Tees, on itss.side, are becks.’ In Kettlethorpechurch, in Lincolnshire, is an epitaph on a former Rector of the parish, theRev.John Becke, who died in 1597:I am a Becke, or river as you know,And wat’red here yᵉ Church, yᵉ schole, yᵉ pore,While God did make my springes here for to flow;But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more.Beckis a Norse word,O.N.bekkr, a brook, occurring already in Middle English, as, for instance, in Hampole’sPsalter,c.1330: ‘Do til thaim as till iabin in the bek of cyson,’Ps. lxxxii. 8.Burnis an English word,O.E.burna,burne, a brook, and is found inSc.Irel.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Yks.Stf.Sikeis also a native word,O.E.sÄ«c, a watercourse, which comes down further south toLei.andNhp.Strypeis a purely Scotch name. Jamieson thus defines it: ‘A strype is distinguished from a burn. The gradation seems to be: watter, a river; burn, a brook; burnie, a small brook; strype, a rill of the smallest kind.’ Though awatermeans a river in Scotland, in England it more usually denotes a smaller stream. The term is found inDur.Yks.andLan., and is common inSom.andDev.An amusing incident once occurred at a Village Penny Reading entertainment where one of the songs on the programme was the well-known ballad poem,On the Banks of Allan Water. The pathetic notes of the last lines:On the banks of Allan WaterThere a corse lay she.had hardly died away when the audience burst into a roar of laughter. They had understood the climax to be some kind of practical joke played by the miller’s daughter: ‘There o’ corse [of course] lay she!’Names for a GirlAttempts have been made to show the geographical distribution of the words for girl, or young woman. Ellis states it roughly thus: ‘mautherin Norfolk,maidin the South,wenchin no bad sense in the Midlands, andlassgenerally in the North,girl,’ he adds, ‘is rather an educated word.’ The wordmawtheroccurs in thePromptorium Parvulorum(circa 1440), the compiler of which was a Norfolk man. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) mentions it as one of the words ‘of common use in Norfolk, or peculiar to the East Angle countries’. It occurs in Ben Jonson’sAlchymist, 1610; and Tusser, who was an Essex man, uses it two or three times in hisFiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1580:No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,with mother or boy that Alarum can cry:And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,to skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.The word is used inGlo.Hrt.andWil.besides East Anglia. At a trial once in Norfolk the Judge inquired who could give evidence of what had just been stated; the reply was: A mawther playing on a planchard [a girl playing on the floor]. The Judge, not being a native, was completely mystified.Maidis the equivalent used inDor.Som.Dev.Cor.When a new baby arrives, the question as to its sex is always put thus: Is it a boy or a maid? A similar use is found in the Bible,cp.‘If she bear a maid child,’Leviticusxii. 5. In the sense of young woman, or girl, the wordmaidoccurs frequently in the Authorized Version of the Bible, whereas the wordgirlonly occurs twice; e.g. ‘The maid [Esther] was fair and beautiful,’Estherii. 7; ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments?’Jeremiahii. 32. The daughter of Jairus, aged twelve, is inSt.Matthewix. 24‘the maid’, though inSt.Markshe is ‘the damsel’. Wyclif termed her ‘the wenche’, a term which occurs in the Authorized Version in 2Samuelxvii. 17, ‘And a wench went and told them.’ In Yorkshire and Lancashirewenchis a term of endearment; in Cheshire it is simply the feminine oflad; in Oxfordshire they summon cows with the cry: Come, wench, come, wench; in Gloucestershire the well-known rhyme runs:A wickering [giggling] wench and a crowing hen,Is neither good to God nor men.It is to Gloucestershire also that belongs the story of the local preacher who declaimed with terrific fervour: Thereyou go, you chaps and wenches, head over heels to hell, like zhip [sheep] drow a glat [a gap in a hedge]. The North-countrylassmay be of any age, though commonly she is a young girl. The word is often used as a term of address, e.g.Owd lass, says I, tha’rt heigh i’ boanAn’ rayther low i’ beef.Natterin’ Nan.The East Anglian BorOne of the most comprehensive terms of familiar address is the East Anglianbor, applied to persons of either sex and of all ages, e.g. Hullo, bor! where be you a’goin? The plural istogether, e.g. Well, together, how are ye all?Boris an old native word,O.E.bÅ«r, which we have in the literary language as the second element inneighbour. How convenient it would be if we could adoptborinto the upper circles of the spoken language, for use at those awkward moments when, after a lapse of years, we unexpectedly find ourselves face to face with an old acquaintance, whose name has slipped from our memories. How openly cordial we could be, and at the same time so comfortably ambiguous: And is it really you, bor? How glad I am to see you again! But if we were to attempt to lay a plundering hand on the dialects with intent to enrich our standard speech by handy and convenient dialect words, we should be embarrassed by the wealth before us. What literary word, for instance, conveys the full meaning of the common dialect termfeckless(Sc.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.War.), the lineal descendant of Shakespeare’seffectless? It means: incapable, incompetent, without resource, shiftless, helpless, and a great deal more besides, all in a handy nutshell. There are scores of adjectives, the forceful individuality of which we instinctively feel, and yet find very hard to convey in the terms of a verbal definition. We are driven to string together inadequate synonyms, or pile up pedantic phrases.A feckless bodywe define as: a person incapable of any effective effort;waughy(n.Cy.), we say, is used in illness, nearly always during convalescence, to express the feebleness, shakiness, and light-headedness after confinement to bed.It also means weak in body, especially when accompanied by a tendency to faint, e.g. I felt that waffy, I should hev siled doon upo’ th’floor, if missis hedn’t gen me sum brandy.Chuff(n.Cy.n.Midl.Midl.) is proud, pleased, denoting a combination of fussiness and serene self-satisfaction. We certainly have here much meaning in little room, as Dr. Johnson found in the wordshrew, which he defines as: ‘A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman.’A gradely LassA few words such ascanny,dour,pawky, have gained a recognized position in the standard speech, through having been introduced by educated Scotchmen. Some of the meanings ofcannyare expressed in the adjectivegradely, a word generally quoted as characteristic of the Lancashire dialect, in the phrasea gradely lass. It belongs, however, also toCum.Wm.Yks.Chs.Stf.Der.Shr.In origin it is a form ofgraithly, a Scandinavian word,O.N.greiðligr, ready, prompt, and it can mean: (1) respectable, honest, (2) handsome, comely, (3) friendly, kind, (4) clever, (5) having full possession of one’s senses, (6) genuine, good, (7) considerable, big. A similarly compact word in general dialect use throughout Scotland and England isjannock, orjonnock; likegradely, also of Scandinavian origin,cp.Norw. dial.jamn, even, level, of whichjannockis apparently a derivative form. The commonest meaning is fair, honest, straight-forward: Yü may trist she. I tellee ’er’s jonnick tü tha back-bone (Dev.). Another attractive adjective in general dialect use ispeart, a delightful word, which positively sounds: brisk, lively, spirited, cheerful, in good health, sharp, and intelligent. It has nothing to do withperteither in form or meaning. It is used specially of persons just recovered from an illness, e.g. Pretty peart again now—but it may also be used of animals and plants. We may remark: Them onions look peart, in contemplating the onion-bed. A common proverbial saying in Cheshire is: Poor and peart like the parson’s pig, whereby hangs a tale. The proverb is traced back to the days when the parson had to take someat least of his tithe in kind, when the pig reserved for him was wont to be a small and thin one, and consequently specially brisk and active compared with the pigs that went to market. More obvious similes are: as peart as a lop [flea]; as peart as a pyet [magpie]; as peart as a cock-robin; and with a figurative touch: as peart as a spoon. Closely connected with the literaryuncouth, is the widespread dialect adjectiveunkid. It looks at first sight like the poor relation from the country, clad in rough rustic garb, but as a matter of fact it is historically a perfectly correct form,cp.M.E.unkid, not made known,-kid=O.E.cȳðed,p.p.ofcȳðan, to make known. Indeed ouruncouthis less regularly developed in pronunciation.Unkidmay be found in all the dialects in England and Ireland, meaning: (1) strange, unusual; (2) untidy, e.g. The missis took a dill a paayns uv our Becca, but ’er couldna larn ’er to be tidy. ’Er sims reg’lar unkid, ’er do (Wor.); (3) uncanny, horrid; (4) lonely, depressed; (5) cross, sulky; (6) stormy; (7) of the weather: close, sultry. Some of the terms for describing persons of sullen, ill-tempered, or peevish dispositions are worth quoting: e.g. cappernishious, crumpsy, frabby, glumpy—If he’s glumpy, let him glump—muggaty, perjinkety, snippety. To address a cantankerous person engaged in a quarrelsome discussion as ‘You nasty brabagious creature’ must give the speaker a pleasant sense of having said the right thing at the right moment.An ugsome SairOther very expressive adjectives are:dowly(Sc.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.Lin.), lonely, melancholy; of places: retired, lonesome, e.g. A desput dowly, deeathly spot t’won [live] in, an old word found in Middle English,cp.‘He fell to þe ground All dowly, for dole, in a dede swone,’Destruction of Troy,c.1400;gaumless(Yks.Nhb.Wm.Lan.), stupid, senseless, vacant, ignorant, without judgment, e.g. Well, if I ever did see annyb’dy so gaumless! Seems as if yo’d noo notion o’ nowt,cp.O.N.gaumr, heed, attention;perky, sharp, saucy, impudent, e.g. Sabina’s Bill is perkier then ony uther lad as I iver clapt eyes on; I sent him wo’d he wasn’tto mislest that theäre maggit nest e’ my plantin’, an’ I gets wo’d back fra him as he’d consither it, bud if I’d send him sixpence he was sewer he wodn’t;skiddley(Som.), small, diminutive, used generally with little, to intensify or to add contempt, e.g. Her ax me nif I’d like vor to take ort; an’ I zaid, thanky mum, s’I; an’ then if her didn bring me out a little skiddley bit o’ bird’n cheese, ’bout ’nough to put in a rabin’s eye;ugsome(Sc.n.Cy.), frightful, horrible, a derivative ofO.N.ugga, to fear, e.g. a ghastly wound is: an ugsome sair, and a savage bull may be said to have ‘leuk’t at us varry ugsomely’;wairsh(Sc.Irel.n.Cy.Midl.Dev.), tasteless, insipid,cp.‘A kiss and a drink of water is but a wersh disjune,’ Ramsay,Proverbs, 1737, and ‘werysshe as meate that is nat well tastye,mal savouré’, Palsgrave,Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse, 1530;wambly(Sc.Lan.Wil.Dev.Cor.), insecure, unsteady.T’onest TriuthSome forceful adjectives have resulted from the simple addition of an ordinary suffix to an ordinary standard English word, e.g.dateless(Wm.Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.Lin.), stupified, foolish, disordered in mind, having the faculties failing through age, insensible, as from a blow, literally, without a date, unconscious of time;deedy(Sc.Yks.Midl.Hmp.Sus.Wil.Dor.), full of activity, industrious, painstaking, earnest, e.g. a deedy body, a practical person, an industrious worker. It was once a literary word,cp.‘In a messenger sent is required ... that he be speedy, that he be heedy, and, as we say, that he be deedy,’ Adams,Lycanthropy, 1615;eyeable(Chs.n.Midl.Midl.Cor.), pleasing to the eye, sightly, as the man who was selling ready-made clothes in the market said of his stock-in-trade: There’s a many things that’s eyeable, but isn’t tryable, or buyable, but theäse things is eyeable, an’ tryable, an’ buyable an’ all;hurryful(Shr.), quick, hasty, hurried, e.g. It inna the ’urriful sort o’ folk as bringen the most to pass, for they runnen about athout thar yed ÅÅth ’em;easyful(w.Yks.Shr.),knowful(Yks.),yonderly(Lakel.Wm.Yks.Lan.Chs.), are good, homely substitutes for indolent, well-informed, absent-minded, literary adjectives, which by comparison with the dialect ones sound prosaic and harsh. Indeed,yonderlyin particular, when applied to persons, is an untranslatable epithet, and yet one which exactly describes certain types of mind. It can also convey a sense of the pathetic, e.g.Then Nan lewkt at ma wi a lewkSoa yonderly an’ sad.Natterin’ Nan.Yonderish(Yks.Lan.), on the other hand, is not a friendly and gentle term, it can be even abusive, when used in speaking to persons who think themselves superior to other people, e.g. Theaw needsno’ be so yonderish, theaw’rt nowt ’at’s owt [thou art nothing that is anything]. Very expressive too are some of the participial adjectives, such as:gaustering(Chs.War.Yks.Lan.Lei.Lin.), blustering, bumptious, e.g. Sike a braungin’, gausterin’ taistrill [such a swaggering, bumptious, good-for-nothing rascal];snazzling(Yks.of the wind or weather), cold, biting, bleak; to lead athreppoing, pungowinglife (Chs.) means the sort of life where it is hard to make both ends meet, when one is puzzled how to get on, a hand to mouth sort of existence; allcotteredinto snocksnarls signifies in an entangled heap; aoondermoindednassty trick is a nicely explicit phrase; so is the sentence: I was socumpuffledI didn’t know what I was about;throssan-, orthrussen-up(Lakel.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.)—literally, thrust-up—means conceited, forward. A Yorkshire woman, when on a visit to her son in the South, was asked by a lady in rather a patronizing manner, what she thought of South-country ladies. She replied: Wah, to tel ye t’onist triuth, the’r nowt bud stuk-up thrussen-up things wi’ nowt mich abaht ’em, the’r all ahtside.Natterin’ NanIt is not easy to make a typical selection of what may be called expressive words, partly because the choice is so very wide, and partly because one is apt to exaggerate the merits of words which appeal to one personally, and so one is not an impartial judge. There are certain quaint dialect words which bring back to one’s mind the days of one’s childhood, the old family nurse, or the gardener who reigned supremein the garden of long ago, and so for old sake’s sake these words express more than meets the ear of a stranger. Here, however, is a sample of verbs of various kinds:brevit(gen.use inMidl.counties), to search, ransack,&c., as in the following account of a visit to the dentist: Soo the doctor, a lukes at my tooth a bit, an’ begins a-brevetin’ abaout among his bench o’ tules, an’ a says, tell ye what Joo, a says, yo’ mut grin an’ aboide this turn. Soo ah says, ah cain’t grin if ye doon’t lave me noo tooshes, ah says. Soo a says, Ah, but yo’ can Joo, a says, yo’ can grin o’ the wrong soide;cabobble(e.An.Cor.), to mystify, puzzle, confuse, e.g. You wholly cabobble me;chunner(Sc.Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.War.Shr.), to grumble, mutter, murmur. A clergyman, asking an infirm old woman how she was, received as an answer: I goes on chunner, chunner, chunner. Whereupon he proceeded to give her a homily showing how wrong it was to be discontented, when he was stopped by the old woman: Bless you, Parson, it’s not me that chunners, it’s my innards!Fratch(n.counties), to quarrel, dispute, as for example, when a loud noise of wrangling voices is heard, some one may suggest that it is two women fratching, or forty men fighting;glox(Hmp.Wil.), of liquids: to roll about, make a gurgling sound when shaken inside a vessel;goggaz(Chs.), to stare, e.g. What a’t tha goggazin’ at naï? Tha’s noo moor manners abaït thee till if tha’d bin born in a wood;guggle(various dialects), to gurgle, make a bubbling sound, which looks at first sight like a made-up word, but which was known to Cotgrave, and to Dr. Johnson, who has: ‘ToGuggle.v.n.[gorgoliare, Italian] To sound as water running with intermissions out of a narrow mouthed vessel’;gnatter,natter(Sc.andn.counties), to grumble, complain, fret, e.g.Natterin’ Nan, which is the title of the most famous of Ben Preston’s dialect poems:Bud t’wahst o’ fouts [faults] at I’ve seen yet,I’ woman or i’ man,Is t’weary, naagin’, nengin’ turnAt plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.A local DickCp.E. Fris.gnattern,murren, verdriesslich sein;knacker(Glo.), of the teeth: to chatter. A local preacher—such as is termed in Yorkshire ‘a local Dick’—was once preaching a sermon on the Last Day, in which he foretold the end of the sinners present in chapel: Every limb of your bodies will shake like the leaves of an aspen tree, and your teeth will knacker in your heads like frost-bitten mariners.Maffle,moffle(Chs.Nhp.), to spend recklessly, squander, waste in trifles. In the accounts of a certain parish, where all the money could not be accounted for, appeared this item: ‘To moffled away£40.’Maunder(gen. dial.), to talk idly and incoherently, to mumble;mopple(Yks.), to confuse, puzzle. At a cottage prayer-meeting a Minister was, as it is called, ‘engaged’ in prayer, when he became annoyed by one of those present, who continually broke in with ejaculations such as: Glory! Amen! Yus!&c.Suddenly the Minister stopped, tapped the disturber on the shoulder and said: Drop it, mun, tha mopples me.Moither(gen. dial.), to confuse, perplex, bewilder, e.g. A wur that moithered, a didn’ knoo wheer a was to a wik [week]. Mary Lamb’s grandmother used to say to her: ‘Polly, what are those poor crazy moythered brains of yours thinking of always?’ C. Lamb’s letter to Coleridge,Oct.17, 1796.Nivel(Glo.Oxf.), to sneer, turn up the nose in disdain. A small boy in a Sunday School class, reading about David and Goliath, was asked what was meant by ‘disdained’ in ‘when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him’.Ans.He nivelled at un.Cp.Fr. Norm. dial.nifler, flairer avec bruit, en parlant d’un chien.Scrawk(Yks.Not.Lin.Nhp.), to scratch, mark, e.g. M’m, me scrawk th’ paaintins [painted woodwork of a room] M’m! I know my wark better;scrouge(var. dial.), to squeeze, press, crowd, e.g. Now dwoan’t ’ee come a scrougin’ on I zo;scrunge(n.Cy.Nhb.Stf.Glo.Oxf.Hmp.I.W.Wil.), with the same meanings asscrouge, e.g. We were that scrunged, we couldn’t move;thrutch(Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.), to crowd, squeeze, huddle together,O.E.þryccan, to press, push. A proverbial saying applied to any one whohas a great deal to say about the conduct or characters of other people and is not above suspicion himself, runs: Where there’s leeost reawm, there’s moast thrutchin’. But the classical illustration of the use of this word comes in the story of Noah and the ancestor of the Lancashire folk. This gentleman was swimming about in the Flood, and meeting the Ark, he called out to Noah to take him aboard, which the latter declined to do, on the grounds of lack of space, adding by way of apology: We’re thrutched up wi’ elephants.Trapes(gen. dial.), to trudge, go on foot, walk heavily or wearily,&c.An old woman on her death-bed was asked to take a message to a previously deceased person, when she retorted sharply: Di ya think ah sall he’ nowt ti deeah i’ heaven bud gan trapsin’ aboot, latin’ [searching] for hor?Yammer(Sc.Irel.Nhb.Lakel.Yks.Lan.Lin.War.), to lament, cry aloud fretfully,O.E.gÄ“omrian, to mourn, complain.All of a GoggleA good descriptive word, which might well be adopted into the standard speech, isfantigue(gen. dial.). To be ina fine fantigueis to be in a state of fussy excitement, or a fit of ill temper, usually without sufficient cause. Similarly, to beall in a confloption(e.An.Cor.) well conveys the idea of flurry, confusion; to beall in a scrow(n.Cy.) is specially used of that annually recurrent state of domestic disorder known as spring-cleaning; to beall of a goggle(Glo.Hmp.I.W.Wil.) is to be trembling and shaking all over; to beall of a jother(Yks.) is a parallel phrase. A stout old woman describing her first experience of a railway journey, said: Ah’ll niver gan in yan o’ thae nasty vans nae mair. Ah trimmel’d and dither’d while [until] ah wur all iv a jother.All of a quob(Wil.Cor.) means in a heap. A Cornish woman describing the way railway porters take luggage out of a train said: They pitch it down all of a quob. A preacher in a Lincolnshire chapel gave out as his text, ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Just then a newly married couple walked in, and the strangeness of the coincidence so upset the orator, that he exclaimed: Mi brethren, I’m cleanblutterbunged. To bein a wassle(Glo.) is to find oneself in a muddle, or fix, as the preacher said when he got lost in his discourse: My friends, you must excuse me, and sing a hymn, for I am in a regular wassle. To be goneall to skubmawis to be in a state of wreckage, broken in pieces. A Cornish minister is reported to have prayed: Lord! send down Thy mighty armour from above, and scat all our stony hearts to skoobmah.Appropriate-sounding WordsThen there are numerous appropriate-sounding terms such as:fiz-gig(Yks.Der.Not.Lin.Nhp.War.I.W.), a disrespectful term for a girl or woman fond of gadding about,cp.‘Trotière,a raump, fisgig, fisking huswife,’Cotgr.;pelrollock(Shr.), an ill-dressed, worn-out looking woman;scallibrat(Yks.), a passionate, noisy child, a young vixen;sledderkin(Cum.), a sauntering, slovenly person;snapperdol(Lan.), a gaily dressed woman. A simple onomatopoeic word for palpitation of the heart isglopping(Lei.); such too ispash(n.counties), for a downpour of rain, e.g. Hout, tout! What’s the gude of praying for moderate rain and shooers? What we want is a gude even-doon pash! But the name of this type of word is legion, and to illustrate it at all adequately would require the scope of a dictionary.Homespun CompoundsIn the days of King Alfred, and of Ælfric, the Abbot of Eynsham, literary English possessed numbers of good, home-grown, compound words, which have since been lost, and replaced by some more learned or diffuse substitute. People said then:book-craftfor literature;star-craftfor astronomy;father-slayerfor parricide;deed-beginnerfor perpetrator of crime;together-speechfor colloquy;old-speechfor tradition;well-willingfor benevolent,O.E.bÅc-cræft,tungol-cræft,fæder-slaga,dÇ£d-fruma,samod-sprÇ£c,eald-sprÇ£c,welt-willende. Sometimes again we have replaced the old compound by a more concise but less picturesque synonym. Forlore-housewe say school; fordim-house, prison; foragain-coming, return,O.E.lÄr-hÅ«s,dim-hÅ«s,eft-cyme. In the spoken dialects we have the natural development of a living tongue, practically untouched by what arecalled the learned influences; hence, where in the literary language we should use a word of Latin origin, we frequently find a homespun compound used by dialect-speakers. We shall see in a later chapter to what a large extent these compounds are figurative and metaphorical; the few here quoted belong only to the simplest type:beet-need(n.Cy.Yks.Lan.), a person or thing that helps in an emergency,cp.O.E.bÄ“tan, to improve;cap-river, a termagant;cover-slut(Lei.Nhp.War.Shr.), a long apron used to hide an untidy dress;has-been(Sc.n.Cy.Lakel.Yks.Chs.Lin.War.Shr.), a person, animal, or thing, formerly serviceable but now past its prime, as the old Lincolnshire man said: It stan’s to reason at yung college-gentlemen like you knaws a vast sight moore then a worn-oot hes-been like me, bud you weänt better God Almighty an’ ten commandments e’ my time, an’ soä I’ll just stick to ’em while I’m happ’d up [till I am buried];he-said, orhe-say(Wm.w.Yks.), a rumour;never-sweat(Yks.Rdn.Oxf.), an idle lazy fellow;rip-stitch(Lakel.Yks.Lan.), a romping boisterous child, e.g. What a rip-stitch that lad is! If aw send him out i’ th’mornin’ wi’ his things o’ reet an’ tidy, he’ll come back at neet like a scarecrow;rogues-agreed(Som.), confederates, e.g. They purtend avore the justices how they ’adn never a-zeed wan t’other avore, but lor! anybody could zee they was rogues-agreed;good-doing(e.An.), charitable;penny-tight(Lin.), short of money;uptake(Sc.n.Cy.Nhb.Cum.), intelligence, comprehension, generally in the phraseinorat the uptake, e.g. He’s gleg i’ the uptak [quick in understanding].Some fine shades of MeaningFine shades of meaning are often expressed in the dialects by some slight variation in pronunciation which to our ears might sound purely arbitrary or accidental, and also by the distinctive use of one or other of two words which from a dictionary point of view are synonymous. For example,drodgeanddrudgeboth mean a person who works hard, but the difference is this: adrudgeis always kept working by a superior, adrodgeis always working because she cannot get forward with her work; the worddrodgeimplies blame, anddrudgenone.Geeble(gsoft),gibble(gsoft),jabble(Bnff.), signify a quantity of liquid. The wordgeeblecontains the notion of contempt and dissatisfaction. When there is a small quantity and greater contempt and dissatisfaction indicated,gibbleis used, and when a larger quantity,jabbleis used.Muxyandpuxy(Som.) mean miry, but amuxylane would be merely a muddy lane, whereas apuxylane would be at least ankle-deep in mud;stealandslance(Lan.Chs.) mean thieve. A boy may take a piece of pie from his mother’s larder, and he will haveslanstit, but if he did the same thing from his neighbour’s place he would havestolenit. Words like this would never be confused by people accustomed to use them in everyday life.
It is generally supposed that the vocabulary of dialect-speaking people is very small; indeed, it has been stated as a scientific fact that the common rustic uses scarcely more than 300 words. The most cursory glance at theEnglish Dialect Dictionary, however, will suffice to convince anybody that this statement is incorrect. The six volumes of this Dictionary contain in all over 5,000 pages, and the number of simple and compound words in the first volume (A-C) is 17,519; and from the careful statistics given of the contents of this volume, it may safely be inferred that the whole Dictionary contains over 100,000 words.
As may be expected, we find in this vocabulary an immense variety of terms or phrases for expressing one and the same idea. For instance, there are approximately 1,350 words meaning to give a person a thrashing, and an almost innumerable quantity meaning to die, and to get drunk. There are some 1,300 ways of telling a person he is a fool. A few names taken at random are: chuffin head, coof, gapus, gauvison, goostrumnoodle, Jerry pattick, mee-maw, ning-nang, nornigig, rockey-codlin, Sammy-suck-egg, snool, stooky, Tom-coddy, yawney, yonnack. A fine cumulative effect is produced by a few introductory adjectives, with or without a final pronoun, in such personal remarks as: Thoo goffeny goavey, it’s thoo at’s daft Watty; You drumble-drone, dunder-headed slinpole; Thah gert, gawmless, sackless, headed fooil thah. There are about 1,050 terms for a slattern, such as: daffock, dawps, drazzle-drozzle, flammakin, hagmahush, lirrox, mad Moll o’ the woods, mawkin, moggy, rubbacrock, slammock or slommocks, trail-tengs, trash-mire, wally-draigle.
Names for the Smallest Pig
Among animals possessing a large variety of names the smallest pig of a litter holds a very prominent place with over 120 titles to distinction, such as: Anthony-pig, cadme, Daniel, dilling (a very old word fordarling, occurring in Cotgrave’sDictionaryand Burton’sAnatomy of Melancholy), greck, little Josey, Nicholas, nisgal, pedman, ritling, runt, squab, treseltrype, wrenock. That handsome bird the hickwall, or green woodpecker,Gecinus viridis, figures under almost every letter of the alphabet; whilst the sparrow and the stickleback also rank high on the list. Among flowers, the ox-eye daisy and the foxglove have the largest number of different names. The foxglove is called: fairy fingers, fairy glove, fairy petticoats, fairy thimbles, witches’ thimbles, bloody man’s fingers, dead man’s bells, flop-a-dock, poppy-dock, pop-guns,&c.,&c.One would fain find in Thormantle, or Thor’s-mantle, a trace of ancient mythology, but the most probable explanation of the term is that it is a corruption oftormentilfromPotentilla Tormentilla, a flower which shares with the foxglove the name Thor’s-mantle.
Names for a Brook
It would be an interesting experiment to try and trace out geographically the use of the various words denoting a stream of water: beck, burn, dike, sike, strype, water,&c.,&c.TheNew English Dictionarytells us thatbeckis ‘the ordinary name in those parts of England from Lincolnshire to Cumberland which were occupied by the Danes and Norwegians’. Another authority, Mr. Oliver Heslop, says: ‘This term, which is found in Danish and Norwegian settlements in England, occurs about sixty-three times in the county of Durham. In Northumberland it is represented in the solitary case of the River Wansbeck, and in this it is questionable whether the second syllable is originally beck,’ and further: ‘The line dividing the more northern burn from thes.Dur.andYks.beck is a sharp one. It runs along the ridge between Wear and Tees from Burnhope Seat eastwards to Paw Law Pike. The tributaries to the Wear, on then.side of this ridge, are burns, and the similar affluents to the Tees, on itss.side, are becks.’ In Kettlethorpechurch, in Lincolnshire, is an epitaph on a former Rector of the parish, theRev.John Becke, who died in 1597:
I am a Becke, or river as you know,And wat’red here yᵉ Church, yᵉ schole, yᵉ pore,While God did make my springes here for to flow;But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more.
I am a Becke, or river as you know,And wat’red here yᵉ Church, yᵉ schole, yᵉ pore,While God did make my springes here for to flow;But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more.
I am a Becke, or river as you know,And wat’red here yᵉ Church, yᵉ schole, yᵉ pore,While God did make my springes here for to flow;But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more.
I am a Becke, or river as you know,
And wat’red here yᵉ Church, yᵉ schole, yᵉ pore,
While God did make my springes here for to flow;
But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more.
Beckis a Norse word,O.N.bekkr, a brook, occurring already in Middle English, as, for instance, in Hampole’sPsalter,c.1330: ‘Do til thaim as till iabin in the bek of cyson,’Ps. lxxxii. 8.Burnis an English word,O.E.burna,burne, a brook, and is found inSc.Irel.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Yks.Stf.Sikeis also a native word,O.E.sīc, a watercourse, which comes down further south toLei.andNhp.Strypeis a purely Scotch name. Jamieson thus defines it: ‘A strype is distinguished from a burn. The gradation seems to be: watter, a river; burn, a brook; burnie, a small brook; strype, a rill of the smallest kind.’ Though awatermeans a river in Scotland, in England it more usually denotes a smaller stream. The term is found inDur.Yks.andLan., and is common inSom.andDev.An amusing incident once occurred at a Village Penny Reading entertainment where one of the songs on the programme was the well-known ballad poem,On the Banks of Allan Water. The pathetic notes of the last lines:
On the banks of Allan WaterThere a corse lay she.
On the banks of Allan WaterThere a corse lay she.
On the banks of Allan WaterThere a corse lay she.
On the banks of Allan Water
There a corse lay she.
had hardly died away when the audience burst into a roar of laughter. They had understood the climax to be some kind of practical joke played by the miller’s daughter: ‘There o’ corse [of course] lay she!’
Names for a Girl
Attempts have been made to show the geographical distribution of the words for girl, or young woman. Ellis states it roughly thus: ‘mautherin Norfolk,maidin the South,wenchin no bad sense in the Midlands, andlassgenerally in the North,girl,’ he adds, ‘is rather an educated word.’ The wordmawtheroccurs in thePromptorium Parvulorum(circa 1440), the compiler of which was a Norfolk man. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) mentions it as one of the words ‘of common use in Norfolk, or peculiar to the East Angle countries’. It occurs in Ben Jonson’sAlchymist, 1610; and Tusser, who was an Essex man, uses it two or three times in hisFiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1580:
No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,with mother or boy that Alarum can cry:And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,to skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.
No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,with mother or boy that Alarum can cry:And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,to skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.
No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,with mother or boy that Alarum can cry:And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,to skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.
No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,
with mother or boy that Alarum can cry:
And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,
to skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.
The word is used inGlo.Hrt.andWil.besides East Anglia. At a trial once in Norfolk the Judge inquired who could give evidence of what had just been stated; the reply was: A mawther playing on a planchard [a girl playing on the floor]. The Judge, not being a native, was completely mystified.Maidis the equivalent used inDor.Som.Dev.Cor.When a new baby arrives, the question as to its sex is always put thus: Is it a boy or a maid? A similar use is found in the Bible,cp.‘If she bear a maid child,’Leviticusxii. 5. In the sense of young woman, or girl, the wordmaidoccurs frequently in the Authorized Version of the Bible, whereas the wordgirlonly occurs twice; e.g. ‘The maid [Esther] was fair and beautiful,’Estherii. 7; ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments?’Jeremiahii. 32. The daughter of Jairus, aged twelve, is inSt.Matthewix. 24‘the maid’, though inSt.Markshe is ‘the damsel’. Wyclif termed her ‘the wenche’, a term which occurs in the Authorized Version in 2Samuelxvii. 17, ‘And a wench went and told them.’ In Yorkshire and Lancashirewenchis a term of endearment; in Cheshire it is simply the feminine oflad; in Oxfordshire they summon cows with the cry: Come, wench, come, wench; in Gloucestershire the well-known rhyme runs:
A wickering [giggling] wench and a crowing hen,Is neither good to God nor men.
A wickering [giggling] wench and a crowing hen,Is neither good to God nor men.
A wickering [giggling] wench and a crowing hen,Is neither good to God nor men.
A wickering [giggling] wench and a crowing hen,
Is neither good to God nor men.
It is to Gloucestershire also that belongs the story of the local preacher who declaimed with terrific fervour: Thereyou go, you chaps and wenches, head over heels to hell, like zhip [sheep] drow a glat [a gap in a hedge]. The North-countrylassmay be of any age, though commonly she is a young girl. The word is often used as a term of address, e.g.
Owd lass, says I, tha’rt heigh i’ boanAn’ rayther low i’ beef.Natterin’ Nan.
Owd lass, says I, tha’rt heigh i’ boanAn’ rayther low i’ beef.Natterin’ Nan.
Owd lass, says I, tha’rt heigh i’ boanAn’ rayther low i’ beef.Natterin’ Nan.
Owd lass, says I, tha’rt heigh i’ boan
An’ rayther low i’ beef.
Natterin’ Nan.
The East Anglian Bor
One of the most comprehensive terms of familiar address is the East Anglianbor, applied to persons of either sex and of all ages, e.g. Hullo, bor! where be you a’goin? The plural istogether, e.g. Well, together, how are ye all?Boris an old native word,O.E.būr, which we have in the literary language as the second element inneighbour. How convenient it would be if we could adoptborinto the upper circles of the spoken language, for use at those awkward moments when, after a lapse of years, we unexpectedly find ourselves face to face with an old acquaintance, whose name has slipped from our memories. How openly cordial we could be, and at the same time so comfortably ambiguous: And is it really you, bor? How glad I am to see you again! But if we were to attempt to lay a plundering hand on the dialects with intent to enrich our standard speech by handy and convenient dialect words, we should be embarrassed by the wealth before us. What literary word, for instance, conveys the full meaning of the common dialect termfeckless(Sc.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.War.), the lineal descendant of Shakespeare’seffectless? It means: incapable, incompetent, without resource, shiftless, helpless, and a great deal more besides, all in a handy nutshell. There are scores of adjectives, the forceful individuality of which we instinctively feel, and yet find very hard to convey in the terms of a verbal definition. We are driven to string together inadequate synonyms, or pile up pedantic phrases.A feckless bodywe define as: a person incapable of any effective effort;waughy(n.Cy.), we say, is used in illness, nearly always during convalescence, to express the feebleness, shakiness, and light-headedness after confinement to bed.It also means weak in body, especially when accompanied by a tendency to faint, e.g. I felt that waffy, I should hev siled doon upo’ th’floor, if missis hedn’t gen me sum brandy.Chuff(n.Cy.n.Midl.Midl.) is proud, pleased, denoting a combination of fussiness and serene self-satisfaction. We certainly have here much meaning in little room, as Dr. Johnson found in the wordshrew, which he defines as: ‘A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman.’
A gradely Lass
A few words such ascanny,dour,pawky, have gained a recognized position in the standard speech, through having been introduced by educated Scotchmen. Some of the meanings ofcannyare expressed in the adjectivegradely, a word generally quoted as characteristic of the Lancashire dialect, in the phrasea gradely lass. It belongs, however, also toCum.Wm.Yks.Chs.Stf.Der.Shr.In origin it is a form ofgraithly, a Scandinavian word,O.N.greiðligr, ready, prompt, and it can mean: (1) respectable, honest, (2) handsome, comely, (3) friendly, kind, (4) clever, (5) having full possession of one’s senses, (6) genuine, good, (7) considerable, big. A similarly compact word in general dialect use throughout Scotland and England isjannock, orjonnock; likegradely, also of Scandinavian origin,cp.Norw. dial.jamn, even, level, of whichjannockis apparently a derivative form. The commonest meaning is fair, honest, straight-forward: Yü may trist she. I tellee ’er’s jonnick tü tha back-bone (Dev.). Another attractive adjective in general dialect use ispeart, a delightful word, which positively sounds: brisk, lively, spirited, cheerful, in good health, sharp, and intelligent. It has nothing to do withperteither in form or meaning. It is used specially of persons just recovered from an illness, e.g. Pretty peart again now—but it may also be used of animals and plants. We may remark: Them onions look peart, in contemplating the onion-bed. A common proverbial saying in Cheshire is: Poor and peart like the parson’s pig, whereby hangs a tale. The proverb is traced back to the days when the parson had to take someat least of his tithe in kind, when the pig reserved for him was wont to be a small and thin one, and consequently specially brisk and active compared with the pigs that went to market. More obvious similes are: as peart as a lop [flea]; as peart as a pyet [magpie]; as peart as a cock-robin; and with a figurative touch: as peart as a spoon. Closely connected with the literaryuncouth, is the widespread dialect adjectiveunkid. It looks at first sight like the poor relation from the country, clad in rough rustic garb, but as a matter of fact it is historically a perfectly correct form,cp.M.E.unkid, not made known,-kid=O.E.cȳðed,p.p.ofcȳðan, to make known. Indeed ouruncouthis less regularly developed in pronunciation.Unkidmay be found in all the dialects in England and Ireland, meaning: (1) strange, unusual; (2) untidy, e.g. The missis took a dill a paayns uv our Becca, but ’er couldna larn ’er to be tidy. ’Er sims reg’lar unkid, ’er do (Wor.); (3) uncanny, horrid; (4) lonely, depressed; (5) cross, sulky; (6) stormy; (7) of the weather: close, sultry. Some of the terms for describing persons of sullen, ill-tempered, or peevish dispositions are worth quoting: e.g. cappernishious, crumpsy, frabby, glumpy—If he’s glumpy, let him glump—muggaty, perjinkety, snippety. To address a cantankerous person engaged in a quarrelsome discussion as ‘You nasty brabagious creature’ must give the speaker a pleasant sense of having said the right thing at the right moment.
An ugsome Sair
Other very expressive adjectives are:dowly(Sc.Nhb.Dur.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.Lin.), lonely, melancholy; of places: retired, lonesome, e.g. A desput dowly, deeathly spot t’won [live] in, an old word found in Middle English,cp.‘He fell to þe ground All dowly, for dole, in a dede swone,’Destruction of Troy,c.1400;gaumless(Yks.Nhb.Wm.Lan.), stupid, senseless, vacant, ignorant, without judgment, e.g. Well, if I ever did see annyb’dy so gaumless! Seems as if yo’d noo notion o’ nowt,cp.O.N.gaumr, heed, attention;perky, sharp, saucy, impudent, e.g. Sabina’s Bill is perkier then ony uther lad as I iver clapt eyes on; I sent him wo’d he wasn’tto mislest that theäre maggit nest e’ my plantin’, an’ I gets wo’d back fra him as he’d consither it, bud if I’d send him sixpence he was sewer he wodn’t;skiddley(Som.), small, diminutive, used generally with little, to intensify or to add contempt, e.g. Her ax me nif I’d like vor to take ort; an’ I zaid, thanky mum, s’I; an’ then if her didn bring me out a little skiddley bit o’ bird’n cheese, ’bout ’nough to put in a rabin’s eye;ugsome(Sc.n.Cy.), frightful, horrible, a derivative ofO.N.ugga, to fear, e.g. a ghastly wound is: an ugsome sair, and a savage bull may be said to have ‘leuk’t at us varry ugsomely’;wairsh(Sc.Irel.n.Cy.Midl.Dev.), tasteless, insipid,cp.‘A kiss and a drink of water is but a wersh disjune,’ Ramsay,Proverbs, 1737, and ‘werysshe as meate that is nat well tastye,mal savouré’, Palsgrave,Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse, 1530;wambly(Sc.Lan.Wil.Dev.Cor.), insecure, unsteady.
T’onest Triuth
Some forceful adjectives have resulted from the simple addition of an ordinary suffix to an ordinary standard English word, e.g.dateless(Wm.Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.Lin.), stupified, foolish, disordered in mind, having the faculties failing through age, insensible, as from a blow, literally, without a date, unconscious of time;deedy(Sc.Yks.Midl.Hmp.Sus.Wil.Dor.), full of activity, industrious, painstaking, earnest, e.g. a deedy body, a practical person, an industrious worker. It was once a literary word,cp.‘In a messenger sent is required ... that he be speedy, that he be heedy, and, as we say, that he be deedy,’ Adams,Lycanthropy, 1615;eyeable(Chs.n.Midl.Midl.Cor.), pleasing to the eye, sightly, as the man who was selling ready-made clothes in the market said of his stock-in-trade: There’s a many things that’s eyeable, but isn’t tryable, or buyable, but theäse things is eyeable, an’ tryable, an’ buyable an’ all;hurryful(Shr.), quick, hasty, hurried, e.g. It inna the ’urriful sort o’ folk as bringen the most to pass, for they runnen about athout thar yed ÅÅth ’em;easyful(w.Yks.Shr.),knowful(Yks.),yonderly(Lakel.Wm.Yks.Lan.Chs.), are good, homely substitutes for indolent, well-informed, absent-minded, literary adjectives, which by comparison with the dialect ones sound prosaic and harsh. Indeed,yonderlyin particular, when applied to persons, is an untranslatable epithet, and yet one which exactly describes certain types of mind. It can also convey a sense of the pathetic, e.g.
Then Nan lewkt at ma wi a lewkSoa yonderly an’ sad.Natterin’ Nan.
Then Nan lewkt at ma wi a lewkSoa yonderly an’ sad.Natterin’ Nan.
Then Nan lewkt at ma wi a lewkSoa yonderly an’ sad.Natterin’ Nan.
Then Nan lewkt at ma wi a lewk
Soa yonderly an’ sad.
Natterin’ Nan.
Yonderish(Yks.Lan.), on the other hand, is not a friendly and gentle term, it can be even abusive, when used in speaking to persons who think themselves superior to other people, e.g. Theaw needsno’ be so yonderish, theaw’rt nowt ’at’s owt [thou art nothing that is anything]. Very expressive too are some of the participial adjectives, such as:gaustering(Chs.War.Yks.Lan.Lei.Lin.), blustering, bumptious, e.g. Sike a braungin’, gausterin’ taistrill [such a swaggering, bumptious, good-for-nothing rascal];snazzling(Yks.of the wind or weather), cold, biting, bleak; to lead athreppoing, pungowinglife (Chs.) means the sort of life where it is hard to make both ends meet, when one is puzzled how to get on, a hand to mouth sort of existence; allcotteredinto snocksnarls signifies in an entangled heap; aoondermoindednassty trick is a nicely explicit phrase; so is the sentence: I was socumpuffledI didn’t know what I was about;throssan-, orthrussen-up(Lakel.Cum.Wm.Yks.Lan.)—literally, thrust-up—means conceited, forward. A Yorkshire woman, when on a visit to her son in the South, was asked by a lady in rather a patronizing manner, what she thought of South-country ladies. She replied: Wah, to tel ye t’onist triuth, the’r nowt bud stuk-up thrussen-up things wi’ nowt mich abaht ’em, the’r all ahtside.
Natterin’ Nan
It is not easy to make a typical selection of what may be called expressive words, partly because the choice is so very wide, and partly because one is apt to exaggerate the merits of words which appeal to one personally, and so one is not an impartial judge. There are certain quaint dialect words which bring back to one’s mind the days of one’s childhood, the old family nurse, or the gardener who reigned supremein the garden of long ago, and so for old sake’s sake these words express more than meets the ear of a stranger. Here, however, is a sample of verbs of various kinds:brevit(gen.use inMidl.counties), to search, ransack,&c., as in the following account of a visit to the dentist: Soo the doctor, a lukes at my tooth a bit, an’ begins a-brevetin’ abaout among his bench o’ tules, an’ a says, tell ye what Joo, a says, yo’ mut grin an’ aboide this turn. Soo ah says, ah cain’t grin if ye doon’t lave me noo tooshes, ah says. Soo a says, Ah, but yo’ can Joo, a says, yo’ can grin o’ the wrong soide;cabobble(e.An.Cor.), to mystify, puzzle, confuse, e.g. You wholly cabobble me;chunner(Sc.Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.War.Shr.), to grumble, mutter, murmur. A clergyman, asking an infirm old woman how she was, received as an answer: I goes on chunner, chunner, chunner. Whereupon he proceeded to give her a homily showing how wrong it was to be discontented, when he was stopped by the old woman: Bless you, Parson, it’s not me that chunners, it’s my innards!Fratch(n.counties), to quarrel, dispute, as for example, when a loud noise of wrangling voices is heard, some one may suggest that it is two women fratching, or forty men fighting;glox(Hmp.Wil.), of liquids: to roll about, make a gurgling sound when shaken inside a vessel;goggaz(Chs.), to stare, e.g. What a’t tha goggazin’ at naï? Tha’s noo moor manners abaït thee till if tha’d bin born in a wood;guggle(various dialects), to gurgle, make a bubbling sound, which looks at first sight like a made-up word, but which was known to Cotgrave, and to Dr. Johnson, who has: ‘ToGuggle.v.n.[gorgoliare, Italian] To sound as water running with intermissions out of a narrow mouthed vessel’;gnatter,natter(Sc.andn.counties), to grumble, complain, fret, e.g.Natterin’ Nan, which is the title of the most famous of Ben Preston’s dialect poems:
Bud t’wahst o’ fouts [faults] at I’ve seen yet,I’ woman or i’ man,Is t’weary, naagin’, nengin’ turnAt plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.
Bud t’wahst o’ fouts [faults] at I’ve seen yet,I’ woman or i’ man,Is t’weary, naagin’, nengin’ turnAt plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.
Bud t’wahst o’ fouts [faults] at I’ve seen yet,I’ woman or i’ man,Is t’weary, naagin’, nengin’ turnAt plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.
Bud t’wahst o’ fouts [faults] at I’ve seen yet,
I’ woman or i’ man,
Is t’weary, naagin’, nengin’ turn
At plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.
A local Dick
Cp.E. Fris.gnattern,murren, verdriesslich sein;knacker(Glo.), of the teeth: to chatter. A local preacher—such as is termed in Yorkshire ‘a local Dick’—was once preaching a sermon on the Last Day, in which he foretold the end of the sinners present in chapel: Every limb of your bodies will shake like the leaves of an aspen tree, and your teeth will knacker in your heads like frost-bitten mariners.Maffle,moffle(Chs.Nhp.), to spend recklessly, squander, waste in trifles. In the accounts of a certain parish, where all the money could not be accounted for, appeared this item: ‘To moffled away£40.’Maunder(gen. dial.), to talk idly and incoherently, to mumble;mopple(Yks.), to confuse, puzzle. At a cottage prayer-meeting a Minister was, as it is called, ‘engaged’ in prayer, when he became annoyed by one of those present, who continually broke in with ejaculations such as: Glory! Amen! Yus!&c.Suddenly the Minister stopped, tapped the disturber on the shoulder and said: Drop it, mun, tha mopples me.Moither(gen. dial.), to confuse, perplex, bewilder, e.g. A wur that moithered, a didn’ knoo wheer a was to a wik [week]. Mary Lamb’s grandmother used to say to her: ‘Polly, what are those poor crazy moythered brains of yours thinking of always?’ C. Lamb’s letter to Coleridge,Oct.17, 1796.Nivel(Glo.Oxf.), to sneer, turn up the nose in disdain. A small boy in a Sunday School class, reading about David and Goliath, was asked what was meant by ‘disdained’ in ‘when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him’.Ans.He nivelled at un.Cp.Fr. Norm. dial.nifler, flairer avec bruit, en parlant d’un chien.Scrawk(Yks.Not.Lin.Nhp.), to scratch, mark, e.g. M’m, me scrawk th’ paaintins [painted woodwork of a room] M’m! I know my wark better;scrouge(var. dial.), to squeeze, press, crowd, e.g. Now dwoan’t ’ee come a scrougin’ on I zo;scrunge(n.Cy.Nhb.Stf.Glo.Oxf.Hmp.I.W.Wil.), with the same meanings asscrouge, e.g. We were that scrunged, we couldn’t move;thrutch(Yks.Lan.Chs.Der.), to crowd, squeeze, huddle together,O.E.þryccan, to press, push. A proverbial saying applied to any one whohas a great deal to say about the conduct or characters of other people and is not above suspicion himself, runs: Where there’s leeost reawm, there’s moast thrutchin’. But the classical illustration of the use of this word comes in the story of Noah and the ancestor of the Lancashire folk. This gentleman was swimming about in the Flood, and meeting the Ark, he called out to Noah to take him aboard, which the latter declined to do, on the grounds of lack of space, adding by way of apology: We’re thrutched up wi’ elephants.Trapes(gen. dial.), to trudge, go on foot, walk heavily or wearily,&c.An old woman on her death-bed was asked to take a message to a previously deceased person, when she retorted sharply: Di ya think ah sall he’ nowt ti deeah i’ heaven bud gan trapsin’ aboot, latin’ [searching] for hor?Yammer(Sc.Irel.Nhb.Lakel.Yks.Lan.Lin.War.), to lament, cry aloud fretfully,O.E.gēomrian, to mourn, complain.
All of a Goggle
A good descriptive word, which might well be adopted into the standard speech, isfantigue(gen. dial.). To be ina fine fantigueis to be in a state of fussy excitement, or a fit of ill temper, usually without sufficient cause. Similarly, to beall in a confloption(e.An.Cor.) well conveys the idea of flurry, confusion; to beall in a scrow(n.Cy.) is specially used of that annually recurrent state of domestic disorder known as spring-cleaning; to beall of a goggle(Glo.Hmp.I.W.Wil.) is to be trembling and shaking all over; to beall of a jother(Yks.) is a parallel phrase. A stout old woman describing her first experience of a railway journey, said: Ah’ll niver gan in yan o’ thae nasty vans nae mair. Ah trimmel’d and dither’d while [until] ah wur all iv a jother.All of a quob(Wil.Cor.) means in a heap. A Cornish woman describing the way railway porters take luggage out of a train said: They pitch it down all of a quob. A preacher in a Lincolnshire chapel gave out as his text, ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Just then a newly married couple walked in, and the strangeness of the coincidence so upset the orator, that he exclaimed: Mi brethren, I’m cleanblutterbunged. To bein a wassle(Glo.) is to find oneself in a muddle, or fix, as the preacher said when he got lost in his discourse: My friends, you must excuse me, and sing a hymn, for I am in a regular wassle. To be goneall to skubmawis to be in a state of wreckage, broken in pieces. A Cornish minister is reported to have prayed: Lord! send down Thy mighty armour from above, and scat all our stony hearts to skoobmah.
Appropriate-sounding Words
Then there are numerous appropriate-sounding terms such as:fiz-gig(Yks.Der.Not.Lin.Nhp.War.I.W.), a disrespectful term for a girl or woman fond of gadding about,cp.‘Trotière,a raump, fisgig, fisking huswife,’Cotgr.;pelrollock(Shr.), an ill-dressed, worn-out looking woman;scallibrat(Yks.), a passionate, noisy child, a young vixen;sledderkin(Cum.), a sauntering, slovenly person;snapperdol(Lan.), a gaily dressed woman. A simple onomatopoeic word for palpitation of the heart isglopping(Lei.); such too ispash(n.counties), for a downpour of rain, e.g. Hout, tout! What’s the gude of praying for moderate rain and shooers? What we want is a gude even-doon pash! But the name of this type of word is legion, and to illustrate it at all adequately would require the scope of a dictionary.
Homespun Compounds
In the days of King Alfred, and of Ælfric, the Abbot of Eynsham, literary English possessed numbers of good, home-grown, compound words, which have since been lost, and replaced by some more learned or diffuse substitute. People said then:book-craftfor literature;star-craftfor astronomy;father-slayerfor parricide;deed-beginnerfor perpetrator of crime;together-speechfor colloquy;old-speechfor tradition;well-willingfor benevolent,O.E.bÅc-cræft,tungol-cræft,fæder-slaga,dÇ£d-fruma,samod-sprÇ£c,eald-sprÇ£c,welt-willende. Sometimes again we have replaced the old compound by a more concise but less picturesque synonym. Forlore-housewe say school; fordim-house, prison; foragain-coming, return,O.E.lÄr-hÅ«s,dim-hÅ«s,eft-cyme. In the spoken dialects we have the natural development of a living tongue, practically untouched by what arecalled the learned influences; hence, where in the literary language we should use a word of Latin origin, we frequently find a homespun compound used by dialect-speakers. We shall see in a later chapter to what a large extent these compounds are figurative and metaphorical; the few here quoted belong only to the simplest type:beet-need(n.Cy.Yks.Lan.), a person or thing that helps in an emergency,cp.O.E.bÄ“tan, to improve;cap-river, a termagant;cover-slut(Lei.Nhp.War.Shr.), a long apron used to hide an untidy dress;has-been(Sc.n.Cy.Lakel.Yks.Chs.Lin.War.Shr.), a person, animal, or thing, formerly serviceable but now past its prime, as the old Lincolnshire man said: It stan’s to reason at yung college-gentlemen like you knaws a vast sight moore then a worn-oot hes-been like me, bud you weänt better God Almighty an’ ten commandments e’ my time, an’ soä I’ll just stick to ’em while I’m happ’d up [till I am buried];he-said, orhe-say(Wm.w.Yks.), a rumour;never-sweat(Yks.Rdn.Oxf.), an idle lazy fellow;rip-stitch(Lakel.Yks.Lan.), a romping boisterous child, e.g. What a rip-stitch that lad is! If aw send him out i’ th’mornin’ wi’ his things o’ reet an’ tidy, he’ll come back at neet like a scarecrow;rogues-agreed(Som.), confederates, e.g. They purtend avore the justices how they ’adn never a-zeed wan t’other avore, but lor! anybody could zee they was rogues-agreed;good-doing(e.An.), charitable;penny-tight(Lin.), short of money;uptake(Sc.n.Cy.Nhb.Cum.), intelligence, comprehension, generally in the phraseinorat the uptake, e.g. He’s gleg i’ the uptak [quick in understanding].
Some fine shades of Meaning
Fine shades of meaning are often expressed in the dialects by some slight variation in pronunciation which to our ears might sound purely arbitrary or accidental, and also by the distinctive use of one or other of two words which from a dictionary point of view are synonymous. For example,drodgeanddrudgeboth mean a person who works hard, but the difference is this: adrudgeis always kept working by a superior, adrodgeis always working because she cannot get forward with her work; the worddrodgeimplies blame, anddrudgenone.Geeble(gsoft),gibble(gsoft),jabble(Bnff.), signify a quantity of liquid. The wordgeeblecontains the notion of contempt and dissatisfaction. When there is a small quantity and greater contempt and dissatisfaction indicated,gibbleis used, and when a larger quantity,jabbleis used.Muxyandpuxy(Som.) mean miry, but amuxylane would be merely a muddy lane, whereas apuxylane would be at least ankle-deep in mud;stealandslance(Lan.Chs.) mean thieve. A boy may take a piece of pie from his mother’s larder, and he will haveslanstit, but if he did the same thing from his neighbour’s place he would havestolenit. Words like this would never be confused by people accustomed to use them in everyday life.