In writing such a chapter there is one difficulty presents itself—where to commence. There is too much material. As a starting-point, let us take the following remark, which was made to me the other day by an old dame:—
- ‘Them lads weean’t deea ez tha’re tell’d; Ah may shoot at ’em ez oft ez Ah leyke, tha deean’t mend ther waays. Ah wadn’t mahnd if tha war onny bit leyke;’ i.e. ‘Those boys will not do as they are told; I may shout at ’em as often as I may, they do not mend their ways. I would not mind if they were any way reasonable.’
One word with reference to ‘’em.’ Writers on Yorkshire mark ‘them,’ so written, with an elision point (’em).
Is this correct? I offer an opinion for what it is worth. The vocabulary of our people dates back to a very remote period; the same may be said of many of the rules which govern their speech. May not this ‘em’ be a case in point; and instead of being a contraction of ‘them,’ only the plural form ‘hem,’ which they have retained along with many other old-time words?
Wicliff, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, translates as follows:—‘And the younger of hem;’ and a few lines below, we find, ‘and he departed’ (divided) ‘to hem.’ Although our people have not retained in their vocabulary the word ‘departed,’ they have held on to another equally archaic, i.e. parting, ‘partinge,’ to divide. I leave this for others better able than I to decide.
In the old dame’s statement it was said that the lads would not mend their ways. ‘To mend our ways’ is equivalent to saying, ‘improve,’ ‘to grow better’; and to be ‘onny bit leyke’=being reasonable.
In the sentence ‘Yon’s nowt ti mahn,’ the word ‘yon’ signifies ‘that or those over there.’ ‘Yon chap’ is ‘that man over there’; or ‘yon coos,’ ‘those cows over there.’ ‘That chap’ points out a man near at hand; ‘yon chap,’ one who is a greater or less distance removed from the speakers. Hence, ‘Yon is nothing to mine’ tells that the thing spoken of was some distance away. ‘To,’ in the statement ‘to mine,’ is equivalent to ‘compared with,’ i.e. ‘That (one) is nothing when compared with mine.’
‘To’ also=‘for,’ e.g. ‘good ti nowt,’ ‘good for nothing.’ Again, ‘to’=‘this.’ And although to some it sounds odd to hear a farmer say, ‘Wa s’all ’ev a good crop ti year,’ ‘we shall have a good crop to’ (this) ‘year,’ it only sounds peculiar because it is unfamiliar. The same individual who would smile at such usage, would perhaps a moment afterwards ask, ‘what have we to dinner to-day?’ i.e. ‘What have we for dinner this day?’ The usage of the negative in the double, treble, or quadruple form is not infrequent. ‘Ah nivver at neea tahm sed nowt aboot nowt ti neeabody neeaways; Ah’d nivver neea call teea,’ literally, reads thus: ‘I never at no time said nothing about nothing to nobody no way; I had never no reason to;’ or, ‘I never said a word to any one; I had no reason to.’ ‘Ah’d nivver neea call teea.’ ‘Call’=‘reason.’ ‘Ah’ll gi’e him a good calling when he cums in; bud he wants his jacket lacing weel t’ maist ov owt.’ ‘To call’ here=‘to scold.’
‘Sha called ma leyke all that; aye! ivverything ’at sha c’u’d lig her tung teea.’ In this instance, ‘called’ means more than a scolding; it means, ‘to defame,’ ‘to have said of the person shameful things,’ ‘to illify[64],’ ‘to speak evil of.’ ‘To lace any one’s jacket,’ is ‘to administer a sound thrashing’; and to say ‘ivverything ’at one can lay the tongue to,’ is to heap upon a person all the opprobrious epithets we can remember or invent. We should not say to a child, ‘What is your name?’ Possibly did we do so, we should be met with a blank stare of amazement. The correct form would be, ‘What do they call you?’ and you would have an answer at once.
We should not say ‘Shout to John,’ but ‘Call of John’; or ‘Thoo’ll ’a’e ti shoot on him looder na that, if thoo aims ti mak him hear,’ i.e. ‘you will have to shout to him louder than that, if you intend to make him hear.’ This word ‘call’ caused considerable bewilderment to one who had to make a complaint to a mother of her son. Being a stranger, the mother replied to him in her best English, but although she managed to divest her speech of much of its usual vocabulary, idiom and the peculiar use of certain words were not so easily laid on one side. She began, ‘It’s ti little ewse, bud Ah’ll call on him, an’ Ah’ll call him well when he cums; bud it’s ti no good my calling him when he does cum, foor Ah’ve called him many a tahm afoor.’