Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

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 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.

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.

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.