[1] ‘For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.’—Boswell, Life of Johnson, sub anno 1748. Ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (1887), vol. i, p. 187.
CHAPTER VI
ARCHAIC MEANINGS AND FORMS IN THE DIALECTS
So far we have considered only those words which, whether recently or long ago, have left the ranks of standard modern English and become ‘dialect’. But another wide field for study opens up when we come to look at common standard English words as they are used in the dialects. We shall find that the dialects have frequently preserved a well-authenticated old meaning which we have let slip, and now express by some quite different word or phrase. What may now sound to us like a perverted sense is often historically correct, for whereas learned influences, the introduction of foreign words—which makes for further specialization and differentiation of meaning—and the general march of civilization affecting manners, customs, and habits of thought, all tend to divert the normal course of language, the dialects have meanwhile kept the noiseless tenor of their way unmolested. Thus it may often happen that it is we of the literary speech who use a word in a perverted or specialized sense, while the unlearned rustic is keeping to one which has been handed down steadily from father to son since the days of Wyclif or Shakespeare, or to go still further back, since the days of Alfred or Chaucer. A few examples of these words used with their older meanings are: able (n.Cy. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. War. Hrf.), well-to-do, rich, e.g. Bob’s a yabble chap, he can live wi’oot wahkin’, cp. ‘Able (wealthy), opulentis,’ Coles, Dict., 1679; admire (Irel. Wm. Yks. Chs. Lei. Nhp. War. Oxf. Som.), to wonder at, notice with astonishment: e.g. Yan wad admire how yau gits sec cauds [such colds], or used with at: Ah caan’t bud admire at t’waay he did it. Cp. ‘Admire not in thy mind, why I do call thee so,’ Twelfth Night, III. iv. 165. The word is frequently used in this sense in Jervas’ Translation of Don Quixote (1742), e.g. ‘The duchess could not forbear laughing to hear the simplicity of her duenna, nor admiring to hear the reasonings and proverbs of Sancho’; ‘he admired at the length of his horse,’ vol. ii, p. 272, l. 6; p. 120, l. 15, World’s Classics edit. Cp. ‘I wondered with great admiration,’ A.V. Rev. xvii. 6. Anatomy (in gen. use throughout dials. except in se. counties), a skeleton, a very thin emaciated person, e.g. She’s dwinnel’t away til a atomy, ’Er little un’s nuth’n but a natomy, cp. ‘They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy,’ Com. Err. V. i. 238; baby (Dur. Wm. Lan. Lin.), a doll, cp. ‘The baby of a girl,’ Macb. III. iv. 106, and:
Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby’s hair.
Matt. Prior, To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty, ll. 15, 16.
Examples of Archaic Meanings
Bachelor (Irel.), an admirer, a suitor, cp. ‘broom-groves, Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,’ Temp. IV. i. 67; bid (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Stf. Der.), to invite, especially to a wedding or funeral, hence: bidden-wedding, one to which a large number of guests are invited, and as at a penny-wedding, expected to contribute, cp. ‘As many as ye finde, byd them to the mariage,’ Tindale, 1534, Matt. xxii. 9; bravery (War. Brks.), splendour, fine clothes, cp. ‘With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,’ T. of Shrew, IV. iii. 57; bride-ale (n.Cy. Som.), a wedding feast, O.E. brȳd-ealo; budget (Sc. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Stf. Not. Shr. Wil. Dor.), a workman’s bag, generally made of leather, especially a tinker’s wallet, Fr. bougette, sac de cuir que l’on portait en voyage. There is an old saying in Nottinghamshire: Yer mun wait while [till] yer get it, like the tinker an’ ’is budget, alluding to the frequent pawning of the budget, to pay for the tinker’s board and lodging, cp.: