If we are to avoid on the one hand the danger of regarding a dialect as nothing better than a wilful perversion of standard English, we yet must not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the smooth-running course of true sound-laws, or the rural charm of quaint words, into the opposite error of supposing that irregularities and distortions do not exist. There are in the dialects numbers of words which can only be regarded as corruptions and mispronunciations of literary English, but considered relatively to the whole vocabulary the proportion of them is very small. Many even of the most obvious are not without a certain interest as examples of popular etymology, or of practical word-formation, as, for instance, when smother and suffocate are blended into the useful word smothercate (Not.), or bold and audacious into boldacious (Der. Cor.). Some apparent corruptions are in reality old forms which can be found in the literary language in the earlier stages of its existence. For example: abuseful (Yks. Lin. War. Shr. Hrf. Glo.) for abusive is not uncommon in seventeenth-century literature, though it must have died out later, as it is not noted by lexicographers such as Bailey and Johnson. The word fancical (gen. dial.) for fanciful occurs in 1676 in a work entitled Musick’s Monument, by Mace. Druggister (Yks. Lin. Pem. e.An. Som. Cor.) for druggist is registered in Sherwood’s Dictionary (1672), ‘A druggister, drogueur.’
Or again, the dialect form may not be directly taken from the standard language, but may be traced back through some other linguistic channel which has influenced its development, e.g. angish (Irel.) is not a mispronunciation of anguish, but it is developed from the Gaelic form aingis. Squinacy (Sc. Irel.), and squinancy in the compound squinancy-berry (Cum. Lan. Ess.), the black currant, are not corruptions of quinsy, but are from O.French squinancie, quinsy. But I shall reserve the treatment of historical forms such as these for a later chapter.
Latin Phrases taken into the Dialects
A few Latin phrases have made their way into the dialects, where they have assumed curious forms and meanings. For example: hizy-prizy (Nhb. Yks. Chs. Der. Som. Dev.), a corruption of Nisi prius, a law-term. It is used to signify any kind of chicanery or sharp practice, or, used as an adjective, it means litigious, tricky; and in the phrase to be at hizy-prizy, it means to be quarrelsome, disagreeable. The plural form momenty-morries (Nhb.), skeletons, stands for memento mori, remember that thou must die, the name given to a small decorative object containing a skeleton or other emblem of death, cp. ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a Death’s-head or a memento mori,’ 1 Hen. IV, III. iii. 35. The Latin nolens volens appears as nolus-bolus (Wil.), nolum-wolum (Wil. Dev.), hoylens-voylens, oilins-boilins (Cum.). A mother sending off an unwilling child to school will say: Oilins-boilins, but thee shall go. Nominy (Nhb. Dur. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Nhp.) represents the Latin nomine in the formula In Nomine Patris, &c., the invocation used by the preacher before the sermon. It means: (1) a rigmarole, a long rambling tale, a wordy, tiresome speech; (2) a rhyming formula or folk-rhyme. A knitting nominy used by girls in Northamptonshire is as follows:
Needle to needle, and stitch to stitch,
Pull the old woman out of the ditch.
If you ain’t out by the time I’m in,
I’ll rap your knuckles with my knitting-pin.
Paddy-noddy, or Parinody (Yks. Lin.), a long tedious rigmarole, a cock and bull story, is a corruption of Pater noster. The form non-plush (many dials.), a nonplus, dilemma, surprise, usually occurs in the phrase: at, or on a non-plush, e.g. I was taken all on a non-plutch. Vady (Sus. Dev.) is a shortened form of vade mecum, used to denote a small leather cylinder, containing change of raiment, and other small comforts of the traveller.
The French rendezvous appears as randivoo, randivoose (Dev. Cor.), randybow (Nhb. Chs. Dev.), rangevouge (Cor.), meaning a noise, an uproar, but the literary sense remains in the verb rumsey-voosey (Wil.), e.g. He went a rumsey-voosing down the lane to meet his sweetheart.