CHAPTER II

RICH AND EXPRESSIVE VOCABULARY

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 the _English 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.

[Sidenote: _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 for _darling_, occurring in Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_ and Burton’s _Anatomy 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 of _tormentil_ from _Potentilla Tormentilla_, a flower which shares with the foxglove the name Thor’s-mantle.

[Sidenote: _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. The _New English Dictionary_ tells us that _beck_ is ‘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 the s.Dur. and Yks. 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 the _n._ side of this ridge, are burns, and the similar affluents to the Tees, on its _s._ side, are becks.’ In Kettlethorpe church, in Lincolnshire, is an epitaph on a former Rector of the parish, the Rev. 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.

_Beck_ is a Norse word, O.N. _bekkr_, a brook, occurring already in Middle English, as, for instance, in Hampole’s _Psalter_, c. 1330: ‘Do til thaim as till iabin in the bek of cyson,’ Ps. lxxxii. 8. _Burn_ is an English word, O.E. _burna_, _burne_, a brook, and is found in Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Yks. Stf. _Sike_ is also a native word, O.E. _sīc_, a watercourse, which comes down further south to Lei. and Nhp. _Strype_ is 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 a _water_ means a river in Scotland, in England it more usually denotes a smaller stream. The term is found in Dur. Yks. and Lan., and is common in Som. and Dev. 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 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!’

[Sidenote: _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: ‘_mauther_ in Norfolk, _maid_ in the South, _wench_ in no bad sense in the Midlands, and _lass_ generally in the North, _girl_,’ he adds, ‘is rather an educated word.’ The word _mawther_ occurs in the _Promptorium 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’s _Alchymist_, 1610; and Tusser, who was an Essex man, uses it two or three times in his _Fiue 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 in Glo. Hrt. and Wil. 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. _Maid_ is the equivalent used in Dor. 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,’ _Leviticus_ xii. 5. In the sense of young woman, or girl, the word _maid_ occurs frequently in the Authorized Version of the Bible, whereas the word _girl_ only occurs twice; e.g. ‘The maid [Esther] was fair and beautiful,’ _Esther_ ii. 7; ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments?’ _Jeremiah_ ii. 32. The daughter of Jairus, aged twelve, is in St. Matthew ix. 24 ‘the maid’, though in St. Mark she is ‘the damsel’. Wyclif termed her ‘the wenche’, a term which occurs in the Authorized Version in 2 _Samuel_ xvii. 17, ‘And a wench went and told them.’ In Yorkshire and Lancashire _wench_ is a term of endearment; in Cheshire it is simply the feminine of _lad_; 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: There you go, you chaps and wenches, head over heels to hell, like zhip [sheep] drow a glat [a gap in a hedge]. The North-country _lass_ may 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’ boan An’ rayther low i’ beef.--_Natterin’ Nan._

[Sidenote: _The East Anglian Bor_]

One of the most comprehensive terms of familiar address is the East Anglian _bor_, applied to persons of either sex and of all ages, e.g. Hullo, bor! where be you a’goin? The plural is _together_, e.g. Well, together, how are ye all? _Bor_ is an old native word, O.E. _būr_, which we have in the literary language as the second element in _neighbour_. How convenient it would be if we could adopt _bor_ into 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 term _feckless_ (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. War.), the lineal descendant of Shakespeare’s _effectless_? 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 body_ we 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 word _shrew_, which he defines as: ‘A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman.’

[Sidenote: _A gradely Lass_ _The Parson’s Pig_]

A few words such as _canny_, _dour_, _pawky_, have gained a recognized position in the standard speech, through having been introduced by educated Scotchmen. Some of the meanings of _canny_ are expressed in the adjective _gradely_, a word generally quoted as characteristic of the Lancashire dialect, in the phrase _a gradely lass_. It belongs, however, also to Cum. Wm. Yks. Chs. Stf. Der. Shr. In origin it is a form of _graithly_, 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 is _jannock_, or _jonnock_; like _gradely_, also of Scandinavian origin, cp. Norw. dial. _jamn_, even, level, of which _jannock_ is 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 is _peart_, a delightful word, which positively sounds: brisk, lively, spirited, cheerful, in good health, sharp, and intelligent. It has nothing to do with _pert_ either 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 some at 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 literary _uncouth_, is the widespread dialect adjective _unkid_. 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. of _cȳðan_, to make known. Indeed our _uncouth_ is less regularly developed in pronunciation. _Unkid_ may 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.

[Sidenote: _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’t to 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 of O.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.

[Sidenote: _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 ŏŏth ’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, _yonderly_ in 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 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 a _threppoing, pungowing_ life (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; all _cottered_ into snocksnarls signifies in an entangled heap; a _oondermoinded_ nassty trick is a nicely explicit phrase; so is the sentence: I was so _cumpuffled_ I didn’t know what I was about; _throssan-_, or _thrussen-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.

[Sidenote: _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 supreme in 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 in Midl. 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: ‘To _Guggle_. v.n. [_gorgoliare_, Italian] To sound as water running with intermissions out of a narrow mouthed vessel’; _gnatter_, _natter_ (Sc. and n.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’ turn At plaaged puir natterin’ Nan.

[Sidenote: _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 as _scrouge_, 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 who has 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.

[Sidenote: _All of a Goggle_]

A good descriptive word, which might well be adopted into the standard speech, is _fantigue_ (gen. dial.). To be in _a fine fantigue_ is to be in a state of fussy excitement, or a fit of ill temper, usually without sufficient cause. Similarly, to be _all in a confloption_ (e.An. Cor.) well conveys the idea of flurry, confusion; to be _all in a scrow_ (n.Cy.) is specially used of that annually recurrent state of domestic disorder known as spring-cleaning; to be _all of a goggle_ (Glo. Hmp. I.W. Wil.) is to be trembling and shaking all over; to be _all 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 clean blutterbunged. To be _in 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 gone _all to skubmaw_ is 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.

[Sidenote: _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 is _glopping_ (Lei.); such too is _pash_ (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.

[Sidenote: _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-craft_ for literature; _star-craft_ for astronomy; _father-slayer_ for parricide; _deed-beginner_ for perpetrator of crime; _together-speech_ for colloquy; _old-speech_ for tradition; _well-willing_ for benevolent, O.E. _bōc-cræft_, _tungol-cræft_, _fæder-slaga_, _dǣd-fruma_, _samod-sprǣc_, _eald-sprǣc_, _welt-willende_. Sometimes again we have replaced the old compound by a more concise but less picturesque synonym. For _lore-house_ we say school; for _dim-house_, prison; for _again-coming_, return, O.E. _lār-hūs_, _dim-hūs_, _eft-cyme_. In the spoken dialects we have the natural development of a living tongue, practically untouched by what are called 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. _bētan_, 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_, or _he-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 phrase _in_ or _at the uptake_, e.g. He’s gleg i’ the uptak [quick in understanding].

[Sidenote: _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, _drodge_ and _drudge_ both mean a person who works hard, but the difference is this: a _drudge_ is always kept working by a superior, a _drodge_ is always working because she cannot get forward with her work; the word _drodge_ implies blame, and _drudge_ none. _Geeble_ (_g_ soft), _gibble_ (_g_ soft), _jabble_ (Bnff.), signify a quantity of liquid. The word _geeble_ contains the notion of contempt and dissatisfaction. When there is a small quantity and greater contempt and dissatisfaction indicated, _gibble_ is used, and when a larger quantity, _jabble_ is used. _Muxy_ and _puxy_ (Som.) mean miry, but a _muxy_ lane would be merely a muddy lane, whereas a _puxy_ lane would be at least ankle-deep in mud; _steal_ and _slance_ (Lan. Chs.) mean thieve. A boy may take a piece of pie from his mother’s larder, and he will have _slanst_ it, but if he did the same thing from his neighbour’s place he would have _stolen_ it. Words like this would never be confused by people accustomed to use them in everyday life.