SPECIMENS OF DIALECT
[Sidenote: _Difficulties of the Vernacular_]
Our difficulty in understanding the vernacular of a dialect-speaker
arises in great measure from the fact that many of the sounds being
unfamiliar to us, we cannot tell which syllable belongs to which word,
and so we cannot rightly divide up the sentence into its component
parts. This would of course be much more easily done if we could at once
write down on paper what we have heard, and then stake it off in
sections, like the cryptic word which the Kentish woman wrote to the
village schoolmaster, to explain the absence of her boy from school:
keptatometugoataturin, which became quite clear when divided up thus:
kept-at-ome-tu-go-a-taturin, that is, kept at home to go
a-harvesting-potatoes. For instance, what sounds like _oogerum_ (Yks.)
stands for a whole sentence: _hug her them_, that is, carry them for
her. The sentence always quoted as the classic puzzle of this type is:
_ezonionye-onionye_, which being interpreted means: have any of you any
on you? Another catch specimen of Yorkshire dialect is _t’weet maks’m
pike’m_, the wet makes them pick themselves, used of fowls cleaning
themselves after rain. Then further, many of the commonest words have by
the unhindered action of the laws of living speech become so worn down,
that we hardly recognize them in this their dialect form, though we are
using them every day ourselves in the standard language. Take for
example such a sentence as: I shall have it in the morning, which has
been pared down to: as-et-it-morn (Yks.). Our forefathers a thousand
years ago would have said: _Ic sceal hit habban on ðǣm morgne_, every
single word of which remains firm and intelligible in its skeleton shape
of: as [I shall]-et [have it]-it [in the]-morn. Add to this an enormous
vocabulary of words non-existent in literary English, it is no wonder if
sometimes the accents of a country rustic sound in our ears like an
unknown tongue. A story is told of a Yorkshireman who went into a store
of general wares in London and asked: What diz ta keep here? Ans. Oh,
everything. Yorkshireman: Ah deean’t think thoo diz. Hesta onny coo-tah
nobs [pieces of wood that secure the tie for the legs of cows when being
milked]?--a question which reduced the cockney salesman to a state of
helpless amazement.
[Sidenote: _Specimens from various Dialects_
_Dialect in the Witness-box_
_Dialect in the Sunday School_]
But to illustrate more fully what has been stated above, I will here
give some specimens culled promiscuously from various dialects: cost
dibble tates? (Chs.), can you set potatoes; hoore’s his heeaf-hod?
(n.Yks.), where is his home?; hod thi clack (e.Yks.), be silent; till
the want-snap (Som.), set the mole-trap; t’deear beeals oot on t’jimmer
(Yks.), the door creaks on the hinge; us lads wur shollin’ doon a stie
(n.Yks.), we boys were sliding down a ladder; what have you got there?
Ans. Nobbut a whiskettle o’ wick snigs (Chs.), only a basketful of live
eels; t’titter oop t’sprunt mun ower a bit (n.Yks.), the one soonest up
the hill must wait awhile; thoo mun think ma on ti remmon it (Yks.),
you must remind me to remove it; tak the sharevil an’ the kipe, an’ goo
an’ get up some o’ them frum tatoes out o’ the slang (Shr.), take the
garden fork and the wicker measure, and go and get up some of those
early potatoes out of the narrow strip of ground; whot ail’th’n? Aw,
they zeth he’th got a pinswill in ’is niddick (Dev.), a boil on the
back of his neck; gan through the yet, an swin the field wi’the beass
in’t (Nhb.), go through the gate and traverse diagonally the field with
the cattle in it; you needna be afeard o’ gweïn through the leasow,
they’n mogged the cow as ’iled poor owd Betty Mathus (Shr.), you need
not be afraid of going through the meadow, they have moved to another
pasture the cow that gored poor old Betty Matthews; they war fearful
fain to pike amang t’shrogs some shoups, bummelkites, and hindberries
(w.Yks.), they were very glad to glean among the bushes some dog-rose
hips, blackberries, and wild raspberries; an’ the leet windle ne’er
blubbereth or weeneth, but look’th pithest and sif’th (Dev.), and the
little delicate child never cries or whimpers, but looks piteous and
sighs; ae’s pinikin, palchy, an’ totelin, ae’s clicky an’ cloppy, an’
a kiddles an’ quaddles oal day (Cor.), he is ailing, delicate, and
imbecile from old age, he is left-handed and lame, and he potters about
and grumbles all day; shoe maddles an taums ower in a sweb (w.Yks.),
she talks incoherently, and from weakness falls down in a swoon; she
shruk so wonnerful that I fared hully stammed (Ess.), she shrieked so
strangely, that I was wholly overcome with amazement; it’s a soamy
neet, ah’s ommast mafted (Yks.), it’s an oppressive night, I am almost
overpowered by the great heat; when t’ bent’s snod, hask, cranchin an’
slaap, it’s a strang sign of a pash (w.Yks.), when the coarse moorland
grass is smooth, brittle, crackling under the foot and slippery, it’s a
strong sign of a sudden downpour of rain; it snew, an’ it stoured, an’
it warn’t while efter dark at ah wossel’d thruff an’ wan yamm (n.Yks.),
it snowed, and the wind was driving the snow in gusts, and it was not
till after dark that I had battled through and reached home; does it
ever rain here? Ans. Why, it donks an’ dozzles an’ does, an’ sumtimes
gi’s a bit of a snifter, but it never cums iv any girt pell (Cum.), it
drizzles and rains slightly, and is misty, and sometimes there is a
slight shower, but it never comes with any great downpour of rain; a
cam doon wee a dousht an’ a pardoos, an sair did it rackle up ma banes,
it wiz nae jeesty job (Bnff.), I fell with a sudden fall, striking the
ground with great violence, and sorely did it shake my bones, it was
no jesting matter; hee’s waxen a gay leathe-wake, fendible, whelkin,
haspenald-tike (Yks.), he has grown a fine supple, hard-working, big,
youth; I is to gie notidge at Joanie Pickergill yeats yown t’neet,
t’moorn at moorn, an’ t’moorn at neet, an’ neea langer as lang’s storm
hods, cause he c’n get na mair eldin (n.Yks.), I am to give notice that
J. P. heats his oven to-night, and to-morrow, morning and night, and
no longer as long as the snow lasts, because he can get no more fuel;
tendar! tendar! [guard] stop the injun, left ma boondle on the planchen
[platform] (Cor.). An old man having an order for some gravel was
asked whether it was ready. He replied: Naw, Sur, but we’ve a got un
in coose, we must buck [break] et, an’ cob [bruise into small pieces]
et, an’ spal [break into yet smaller pieces] et, an’ griddle [riddle]
et twice, an’ then et’ll be fitty (Cor.). A Cornish girl applying for
a housemaid’s situation was asked: What can you do? Ans. I can louster
and fouster, but I caan’t tiddly; I can do the heavy work, and work
hard at it, but I can’t do the lighter housework. Sometimes a request
for an interpretation of mysterious words only draws forth more of the
same nature, for instance: Mester, that back kitchen’s welly snying
[swarming] wi’ twitch-clogs. What do you mean by twitch-clogs, Mary?
Whoi, black-jacks (Chs.). But ‘Mester’ was still in blissful ignorance
of the presence of black-beetles in his back kitchen. The following
conversation is reported from Somersetshire: I wish you would tell me
where you get your rennet. Why, I buys a vell and zalts’n in. A vell!
whatever is that? Don’ee know hot a vell is? Why a pook, be sure! Dear
me, I never heard of that either; what can it be? Zome vokes call’n
a mugget. I really cannot understand you. Lor, mum! wherever was you
a-brought up to? Well, to be sure! I s’pose you’ve a-zeed a calve by
your time? Of course I know that. Well then, th’ urnet’s a-tookt out
of the vell o’ un. Some one who had never heard the word _gouty_ as
used in Cheshire to mean wet, spongy, boggy, asked: What is a gouty
place? Ans. A wobby place. What’s a wobby place? A mizzick. What’s a
mizzick? A murgin. A judge at the Exeter assizes asked a witness: What
did you see? Witness: A did’n zee nort vur the pillem. Judge: What’s
pillem? Witness: Not knaw what’s pillem? Why, pillem be mux a-drowed.
Judge: Mux! What’s mux? Witness: Why mux be pillem a-wat [mud is wet
dust]. An assault case came before a magistrate in a Yorkshire Police
Court. Magistrate--to plaintiff: Well, my good woman, what did she do?
Plaintiff: Deeah? Why, sha clooted mi heead, rove mi cap, lugged mi
hair, dhragged ma doon, an’ buncht ma when ah was doon. Magistrate--to
clerk: What did she say? Clerk (slowly and decisively): She says the
defendant clooted her heead, rove her cap, lugged her hair, dhragged
her doon, an’ buncht her when sha was doon. Sometimes the inability
to comprehend is on the side of the country rustic. At a school in
Wensleydale a South-country inspector, examining a class on the Bible,
said: Neow tell me something abeout Mouses. Cats kill ’em, was the
prompt rejoinder. A lady reading _Exodus_ ix. 3, ‘There shall be a
very grievous murrain,’ to a Sunday School class of Cornish children,
was puzzled by the seemingly irrelevant comment made by one of her
scholars: Ants is awful things, aint ’em? Afterwards she discovered
that an ant in Cornwall is called a _muryan_. A similar story comes
from Sussex. A lady who had been giving a lesson on Pharaoh’s dreams
was startled to find that all the boys supposed that the fat and lean
kine were weasels. In Surrey, Kent, and Sussex a weasel is called a
_kine_, or _keen_. An old labourer reading the _Book of Genesis_ came
to this verse: ‘And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet
alive: I will go and see him before I die’ (chap. xlv. 28). There’s a
hatch zomewhere in this story, vor however could wold Jacob zee hes
zon Joseph if hee’d ben yet alive? If he’d ben _yet_ up alive, or
dead, how could there be any of ’en left vor his father to zee? That’s
what I wants to know (I.W.). It must have been a more highly educated
person who understood the coroner’s question: Did you take any steps to
resuscitate the deceased? Ans. Yes, sor, we riped [rifled] ’ees pockets
(Nhb.). An old woman once asked a neighbour the meaning of the word
Jubilee. Ans. Why, ’tes like this, if yiew an’ yieur auld man ’ave ben
marrid fifty years, ’tes a Golden Wedden’, but if the Lord ’ave took
un, ’tes a Jewbilee. A local preacher expounding the Bible to a rural
congregation in North Yorkshire told his hearers that the ‘ram caught
in a thicket’, _Genesis_ xxii. 13, meant: an aud teeap cowt iv a brier.
[Sidenote: _The Dame’s School_]
The quaintly-worded command, Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai (Chs.), has
more significance than meets the eye of those who read it now, for it
records a faint echo from the times of that ancient institution once
common to every village, but now obsolete, namely, the Dame’s School,
the theme of Shenstone’s poem, _The School-Mistress_ (1742), wherein
he sought to imitate the ‘peculiar tenderness of sentiment remarkable
throughout’ the works of Spenser:
In ev’ry village mark’d with little spire,
Embow’r’d in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we school-mistress name;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame.
The ‘Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai’ [you must begin and get dressed for
going now] was the signal given by an old dame who kept a school near
Wrenbury to her ‘little bench of heedless bishops’ that lessons were
over for the day.
But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle skie,
And liberty unbars her prison-door;
And like a rushing torrent out they fly,
And now the grassy cirque han cover’d o’er
With boist’rous revel-rout and wild uproar.
[Sidenote:_An old Village Dame_]
Shenstone’s old dame kept a ‘birchen tree’ from which she cut her
‘scepter’; he does not mention the other weapon of torture wielded by
these female tyrants, which was the thimble. The poor children were
rapped on the head with a thimbled finger, and the operation was known
as _thimble-pie_ making. The old dame that I remember, who must have
been one of the last of all her race, was of milder mood than these.
Her name was Mrs. Price, and she dwelt in a remote and picturesque
corner of Herefordshire called Tedstone Delamere. I cannot call it a
village, or even a hamlet, for the houses were so very few and far
between. Mrs. Price’s scholars were mere baby creatures, old enough to
run about and get into mischief, or court danger, and yet too young to
be sent to the parish school with their bigger brothers and sisters. So
busy mothers were glad to pay a trifling sum to have these little ones
tended by a motherly old widow-woman for a few hours every morning. But
the time came when age and infirmity debarred her from even this light
task, and her cottage no longer resounded with those noises which ‘Do
learning’s little tenement betray’. I found her one day sitting all
alone with an open Bible on the table beside her, and her spectacles
lying idle in her lap. She looked tired and dispirited, and said her
eyes were so bad that she had been obliged to stop reading, and sit
doing nothing. Naturally I offered to read aloud to her awhile, and I
inquired what had been engaging her attention. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘I’d
just got to where the frogs came up upon Pharaoh.’ I took the book, and
read on and on, for each time I came to ‘the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s
heart’, the aged Mrs. Price evinced such satisfaction over the prospect
of yet another Plague, that I had not the heart to cut a long story
short. At last when Pharaoh had finally bidden the Israelites ‘be
gone’, I closed the Bible, and as I did so, the old lady exclaimed,
‘Ain’t that nice readin’!’ One would not have thought that the history
of the seven Plagues of Egypt was exactly the portion of Scripture best
fitted to cheer and comfort a lone and feeble old woman. Perhaps it
stirred old fires in her blood, rekindling memories of the days when
children deemed her ‘the greatest wight on ground’, when she held the
reins of power, distributing rewards and punishments as the honoured
head of a Dame’s School.