_Devonianisms_ (Vol. viii., p. 65.).--Your correspondent MR. KEYS is at a
loss for the origin of the word _plum_, as used in Devonshire. Surely it is
the same word as _plump_, although employed in a somewhat different sense.
_Plum_ or _plump_, as applied to a bed, would certainly convey the idea of
softness or downiness. As to the employment of the word as a verb, I
conceive that it is analogous to an expression which I have often heard
used by cooks, in speaking of meat or poultry, "to plump up." A cook will
say of a fowl which appears deficient in flesh, "It is a young bird; it
will plump up when it comes to the fire." A native of Devonshire would
simply say, "It will plum."
As to the word _clunk_, it is in use throughout Cornwall in the sense of
"to swallow," and is undoubtedly Celtic. On referring to Le Gonidec's
_Dictionnaire Celto-Breton_, I find "_Lonka_, or _Lounka_, v.a. _avaler_."
I have neither a Welsh dictionary nor one of the ancient Cornish language
at hand, but I have no doubt that the same word, with the same
signification, will be found in both those dialects of the Celtic, probably
with some difference of spelling, which would bring it nearer to the word
_clunk_.
It is not wonderful that a word, the sound of which is so expressive of the
action, should have continued in use among an illiterate peasantry long
after the language from which it is derived was forgotten; but many pure
Celtic words, which have not this recommendation, are still in common use
in Cornwall, and a collection of them would be highly interesting. Could
not some of your antiquarian correspondents in the west, MR. BOASE of
Penzance for example, furnish such a list? I will mention one or two words
which I chance to remember: _mabyer_, a chicken, Breton _mab_, a son,
_iar_, a hen; _vean_, little, Breton _vihan_. {655}
To persons acquainted with the Welsh or Breton, the names of places in
Cornwall, though sometimes strangely corrupted, are almost all significant.
The dialect of Celtic spoken in Cornwall appears to have approached more
closely to the latter than to the former of these tongues; or perhaps,
speaking more correctly, it formed a connecting link between them, as
Cornwall itself lies about midway between Wales and Brittany.