Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

And so we did remain,

Till parted by the God of love

While we do meet again.

This use of while was once literary, and occurs in Shakespeare’s Plays. The conjunctions if, and, used as present participles, form an expression denoting hesitation, e.g. I axed that ŏŏman about the weshin’, an’ after a good bit o’ iftin’-an’-andin’ ’er said ’er’d come—but ’er didna seem to car’ about it (Shr.). Neighbour, used as a verb, is very common in the sense of associate with, visit, go about gossiping, e.g. I give them the time o’ day, but I don’t neighbour with any of them.

Familiar Forms in Standard English with different Meanings in the Dialects

Then there are an almost unlimited number of dialect terms which sound like familiar forms in standard English speech, but which are in reality words of totally different origin and meaning. Agate is a very common adverb in all the north-country dialects, meaning on the way, afoot, astir, &c., concerning which a story is told of a farmer’s wife giving her instructions to a new, south-country servant thus: Thoo mun git a-gait i’ good tahm i’ t’mornin’ an’ leet t’fires. The poor girl was seen wandering about the fields in the early morning, and when the mistress appeared and reproached her for the unlighted fires, she explained that she had been searching in vain for an old gate to break up and use for kindling. A villager meeting the new curate accosted him with: ‘Ah see you’re a-gait.’ ‘No,’ replied the parson in an indignant tone, ‘I’m the curate.’ A badger (n. and midl. counties) is a corn dealer, or a huckster, a very old term, found in early English Dictionaries; a banker (Yks. Stf. Lin.) is a navvy, a drain-and ditch-digger. The judge and bar were puzzled by being told that a disreputable fellow whom the police had found asleep under a stack was a banker. ‘A banker!’ exclaimed the judge. ‘Yes, sur, and he is a banker, that I’ll take my Bible oath on, for I seed him mellin’ doon kids at the stathe end not ower three weeks sin’,’ replied the witness, and an interpreter had to be found in court to explain to the men of law that the witness had described a navvy occupied in hammering down faggots supporting the foreshore of a river. A banker-mason (Rut.) is one who works fine stone: We call them as chops stones for walls, choppers-and-wallers. If you called a banker-mason a chopper-and-waller, he’d look awkward [annoyed]. To boast (w.Yks.) is to dress stone with a chisel, which chisel is termed a boaster; a bounder (Cor.) is the holder of a tin-bound or parcel of land in the tin-mines; a damsel (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Chs.) is a damson plum, e.g. Fine fresh damsels at sixpence a peck; a dodger (Ken.) is a night-cap; a fresher (e.An.) is a young frog; a humbug (Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. War. Wor. Hrf. Glo. Wil. Dev.) is a particular kind of sweetmeat, varying in different localities. A well-known vendor of humbugs, familiarly called Dan, until a few years ago regularly plied his trade on the platform of Shipley station, and was wont to relate with pride that he had once sent a parcel of his wares to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, by the hand of Princess Beatrice. Love (Ess.) means lather, soap-suds; an old maid (Wor. Glo.) is a horse-fly; to peck (Wor. Oxf. Brks. Sus. Wil.) is to use a pickaxe. In a case of manslaughter the witness giving evidence remarked: You see he pecked he with a peck, and he pecked he with a peck, and if he’d pecked he with his peck as hard as he pecked he with his peck, he would have killed he, and not he he. Raps (Chs. War. Shr.) are sports, games, fun of any kind, e.g. It wuz rar’ raps to ’ear the ’unters shoutin’ to the scar-crow to know which way the fox went; shale (w.Yks.) denotes a fire-lighter, made by cutting down a piece of soft deal wood into something resembling a tree-fern. A showman proclaimed that within his show we were to be told something worth a pound for a penny. Inside was a man cutting shales, and all he said was: Always cut from you and you’ll never cut yourself. To simper (Irel. w.Yks. e.An.) is to simmer, cp. ‘I symper, as lycour dothe on the fyre before it begynneth to boyle,’ Palsgrave, 1530; a slip (Irel. Pem. I.W. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.) is a young pig; to steal (Yks.) is to put handles on pots. The following conundrum was once very common: As Ah went ower Rummles Moor, Ah pept dahn a nick an’ Ah seed a man steylin’ pots, an’ they wor all his awn. Hah could that be? A wig (in gen. dial. use) is a kind of cake or bun, a plain wig is a bun without currants, a spice wig is one with currants. The Lincolnshire version of the common nursery rhyme runs as follows:

Tom, Tom, the baker’s son,

Stole a wig, and away he run;

The wig was eat, and Tom was beat,

And Tom went roaring down the street.