Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore. Elizabeth Mary Wright
O.E. clēa, the nom. form of the substantive which in the oblique cases has given Eng. claw. ‘Fleet. v.a. … 3. [In the country.] To skim milk; to take off the cream: whence the word fleeting dish,’ cp. fleet (Cum. w.Yks. Lan. Hrt. e.An. Suf. Ken.), to skim, take off the surface, especially to take off the cream from milk; fleeting-dish, a flat dish used in skimming cream from milk. ‘Gleed. n.s. … A hot glowing coal. A provincial and obsolete word,’ cp. gleed (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Chs. Stf. Der. Not. Lei. Nhp. War. Wor. Shr. Glo.), a spark, ember, red hot-coal, &c. ‘To Pound, v.a. [punian, Sax. whence in many places they use the word pun].’ The form pun still exists in the following counties: n.Cy. w.Yks. s.Chs. Der. Not. Lei. War. Wor. Shr. Hrf. Glo. ‘Rear. adj. … 1. Raw; half roasted; half sodden. 2. Early. A provincial word.
O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,
Then why does Cuddy leave his cot so rear? Gay.’
Cp. rear (gen. dial. use in Eng.), of meat, eggs, &c.: half-cooked, underdone, O.E. hrēr, not thoroughly cooked, lightly boiled. ‘Soe. n.s. [sae, Scottish]. A large wooden vessel with hoops, for holding water; a cowl. A pump grown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason full you may fetch up as many soe-fills. More.’ Cp. soa (n.Cy. Nhb. Stf. Lin. Bdf. e.An.), a large round tub, gen. with two ears; used for brewing or carrying water, O.N. sār, gen. sās, a large cask. ‘Suds. n.s. … 1. A lixivium of soap and water. 2. To be in the Suds. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.’ The same phrase is still extant in n.Lin. and s.Wor. ‘To Toot. v.n. … To pry; to peep; to search narrowly and slily. It is still used in the provinces, otherwise obsolete.
I cast to go a shooting,
Long wand’ring up and down the land,
With bow and bolts on either hand,
For birds and bushes tooting. Spenser’s Past.’
Johnson’s Scottish Assistants
Cp. toot (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Rut. Lei. Nhp. War.), to peep, and pry about; to spy, O.E. tōtian, to peep out. ‘To Trape. v.a. [commonly written to traipse: probably of the same original with drab]. To run idly and sluttishly about. It is used only of women,’ cp. trape (Cum. Wm. Lin. Nrf. Suf.), to walk in a slovenly manner, especially with the dress trailing; and trapes (gen. dial. and colloq. use in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), used in the same sense. One striking example of accurate knowledge of a word belonging only to a very limited locality is the entry: ‘Sarn. n.s. A British word for pavement, or stepping stones, still used in the same sense in Berkshire and Hampshire,’ cp. sarn (Shr. Brks. Hmp.), a culvert; a pavement; stepping stones, cp. Wel. sarn, pauimentum. The word atter Johnson introduces on the authority of Skinner: ‘Atter. n.s. … Corrupt matter, A word much used in Lincolnshire. Skinner.’ It is used to-day only in certain northern counties, and in East Anglia. The information concerning words then current ‘in the northern counties, and in Scotland’, was probably supplied by Johnson’s assistants. Out of his six amanuenses, five were Scots.[1] A few examples of these words are: ‘Fain. adj. … 1. Glad; merry; chearful; fond. It is still retained in Scotland in this sense.’ ‘Flit. v.n. … 2. To remove; to migrate. In Scotland it is still used for removing from one place to another at quarter-day, or the usual term.’ ‘Grout. n.s. [ … In Scotland they call it groats.] 1. Coarse meal.’ ‘Haver is a common word in the northern counties for oats: as, haver bread for oaten bread.’ ‘Kirk. n.s. … An old word for a church, yet retained in Scotland.’ ‘To Lout. v.n. … In Scotland they say, a fellow with lowtan or luttan shoulders; that is, one who bends forwards; his shoulders or back,’ cp. looting, ppl. adj. stooping, bending, now occurring in Sc. dialects only. ‘Leverook. n.s. … This word is retained in Scotland, and denotes the lark. The smaller birds have their seasons; as, the leverook. Walton’s Angler. If the lufft faa ’twill smoore aw the leverooks. Scotch Prov.’ This proverbial saying is still found in Sc. dialects, used in speaking to those who expect unlikely evils to befall them. Other examples of extant Scottish words noted by Johnson are Ambry, Bannock, Jannock, Lyart, Lope, Piggin, Sark, Skep, Thrapple, Throdden. Numbers of modern dialect words are to be found in Johnson’s Dictionary stigmatized by him as ‘low’. Without making a complete collection of them, and submitting them to careful linguistic study, it is impossible to say definitely in each case why he thus marked them off from polite speech. One is, however, tempted to think that he sometimes thus disposed of a word simply because he did not happen to know it in his own dialect; for some of his ‘low’ words have no worse history than others which he admits as ‘provincial’. For example: ‘To dag. v.a. … To daggle; to bemire; to let fall in the water,’ is given as ‘a low word’, while the synonymous ‘To daggle’ is admitted without comment; cp. dag, to trail in the dew, wet, or mire, to bedraggle, now essentially a Midland word, and daggle (n.Cy. Yks. Chs. Lei. Nhp. War. Oxf. e.An. Suf.), with the same meaning. Others of his ‘low’ words yet current are: ‘To Collogue, v.n. … To wheedle; to flatter; to please with kind words’; ‘A Clutter, n.s. … A noise; a bustle; a busy tumult; a hurry; a clamour’; ‘To dizen. v.a. … To dress; to deck; to rig out.’ On the other hand, modern usage confirms Johnson’s opinion in the case of: ‘Souse. adv. With sudden violence. A low word’; ‘To Swop. v.a. [Of uncertain derivation.] To change; to exchange one thing for another. A low word’; and so with many other words, which are to the present day, not dialect, but colloquial and slang expressions that have never worked their way up into ‘polite usage’, as has been the better fortune of: ‘To budge’; ‘To coax’; ‘Quandary’; ‘Touchy’; and a few more, which were once also under the ban of Johnson’s opprobrium, and were each branded with his stern, judicial dictum, ‘a low word’.
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