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 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.
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.’
A gradely Lass
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.