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Shakesperian Words in the Dialects

In the same way most of the obsolete Shakespearian words can still be traced in the dialects. The Shakespeare-Bacon theory, if not too dead and gone to be worth further combat, could easily be completely overthrown by any one who chose to array against it the convincing mass of evidence which proves Shakespeare’s intimate acquaintance with the Warwickshire dialect. Numbers of the words and phrases which Shakespeare used, and which we have since lost, still exist in his native county, and in the other counties bordering on Warwickshire. Some of them were at that date part and parcel of the standard vocabulary, and might be put by Shakespeare into the mouths of his highest personages; others again must even then have been regarded by him as dialect, and natural only to the speech of lower folk. It is Corporal Nym who says shog for move, jog: ‘Will you shog off?’ Hen. V, II. i. 47; ‘Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton,’ Hen. V, II. iii. 47. It is a serving-man who uses the phrase to sowl by the ears: ‘He’ll go, he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears,’ Cor. IV. v. 213; and it is Mistress Quickly, the hostess of a tavern, who calls herself a ‘lone woman’ when she means she is a widow: ‘A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear,’ 2 Hen. IV, II. i. 35. But to classify after this sort all the old words in Shakespeare would entail a classification of all the characters in the plays, and would thus be outside the scope of this book. I cannot therefore do more than give examples massed together irrespective of the question whether they were literary words or not in Shakespeare’s time:

Bavin, a bundle of brushwood, a faggot, cp.:

In stacking of bauen, and piling of logs,

Make under thy bauen a houell for hogs.

Tusser.

Bawcock, a semi-mocking term of endearment, a foolish person; biggin, a nightcap without a border:

Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet

As he whose brow with homely biggen bound

Snores out the watch of night.

2 Hen. IV, IV. v. 26–8.

Biggin, Bolter, Blouze

The word also denoted a child’s cap, hence: From the biggin to the nightcap, signifies from childhood to old age. It is worth noting that this is the meaning which Dr. Johnson assigns to the word—cp. ‘Biggin … A child’s cap’—and he gives as the sole illustration the above quotation from Shakespeare. Bolter, used of snow, dirt, &c., means to cohere, form into lumps: ‘blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me,’ Macb. IV. i. 123; blouze, a fat, red-faced wench, a coarse, untidy woman, also termed a blossom: ‘Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure,’ Tit. And. IV. ii. 72; codger, a shoemaker: ‘Ye squeak out your cozier’s catches,’ Twelfth N. II. iii. 97; day-woman, a dairymaid; dowl, down, soft feathers; drumble, to be sluggish and slow in movement; cowl, a large tub: ‘Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-mead; quickly, come,’ Merry Wives, III. iii. 156; fettle, to prepare, make ready; fill-horse, the shaft-horse; firk, to beat; flap-jack, a pancake; gaberdine, a loose garment or smock-frock: ‘Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows,’ Temp. II. ii. 40; flaw, a sudden gust or blast of wind:

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!

Ham. V. i. 238, 239.

Gallow, to frighten; geck, a fool; grize, a step; haggle, to hack, mangle; inch-meal, little by little; inkle, an inferior, coarse kind of tape: ‘He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ the rainbow, … inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns,’ Wint. Tale, IV. iv. 208. As a simple word, inkle is dying out now, but the compound inkle-weaver is very common in the phrase: As thick as inkle-weavers, very friendly or intimate together. Insense, to cause to understand, to explain, inform, literally to put sense into. The word is usually spelt incense in Shakespeare editions, so that it becomes mixed up with incense, to enrage, incite, but insense is clearly the right spelling in such a passage as:

Sir, I may tell it you, I think I have

Incensed the lords o’ the council that he is—

For so I know he is, they know he is—

A most arch-heretic.

Hen. VIII, V. i. 42–5.

Jance, to knock about, expose to circumstances of fatigue; kam, crooked, awry, e.g. It’s clean kam, an’ nowt else (Lan.), cp. ‘This is clean kam,’ Cor. III. i. 304; kecksies, hemlock, and similar hollow-stalked plants; keech, a lump of congealed fat:

I wonder

That such a keech can with his very bulk,

Take up the rays o’ the beneficial sun.

Hen. VIII, I. i. 54–6.

Cp. ‘Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly?’ 2 Hen. IV, II. i. 101; kibe, a chilblain, a crack in the skin: ‘The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe,’ Ham. V. i. 153. An Irish recipe for the cure of kibes is as follows: The person suffering from kibes must go at night to some one’s door and knock. When any one asks ‘Who’s there?’ the person who knocked must run away calling, ‘Kibey heels, take that.’ Then the kibes will leave the person who has them, and pass to the one who called ‘Who’s there?’ Knoll, to toll; malkin, a slattern; mammock, to break or cut to pieces, tear, mangle; mated, confused, bewildered, e.g. I be reg’lar mated (Oxf.), cp. ‘My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight,’ Macb. V. i. 86; mazzard, the head or face; milch or melch, warm, soft, and moist, in the modern dialects applied chiefly to the weather, e.g. Ther’s a deäl of foäks is badly, an’ its all thruf this melch weather (Lin.), cp. ‘Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,’ Ham. II. ii. 540. The word is connected with Du. malsch, tender, soft, E.Fris. malsk, and has probably nothing to do with milch, milk-giving. Minikin, small, delicate, effeminate; moble, to muffle the head and shoulders in warm wraps:

First Play. But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen—

Ham. The mobled queen?

Pol. That’s good; mobled queen is good.

Ham. II. ii. 524–7.

Moble, Muss, Nook-shotten

Muss, a disturbance, uproar, squabble; neeze, to sneeze:

And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,

And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear.

Mid. N. D. II. i. 55, 56.

Cp. ‘By his neesings a light doth shine,’ Job xli. 18; nook-shotten, shot into a corner, used in Cheshire of cheese put aside from the rest as inferior:

… but I will sell my dukedom

To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm

In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.

Hen. V, III. v. 12–14.

Nay-word, a by-word; orts, remnants, scraps, especially of food; peat, a term of endearment, a pet; pick-thank, a flatterer, a tale-bearer, a mischief-maker; plash, a puddle, a small pool; pink, adj. and vb. small, to make small, to contract, especially to contract the eyes: ‘Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne,’ A. and C. II. vii. 121; poach, potch, to poke, especially with the fingers, to thrust; pomewater, a large kind of apple; quat, a pimple; rack, flying clouds, thin broken clouds driven by the wind:

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face.

Sonn. xxxiii. 5, 6.

Reechy, smoky, begrimed with smoke, dirty; reneague, renege, to refuse, deny; rivelled, wrinkled, puckered; shive, a slice of anything edible, especially of bread; skillet, a small metal vessel used for boiling liquids: ‘Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,’ Oth. I. ii. 273; sleeveless, useless, bootless, especially in the phrase a sleeveless errand, cp. Troil. and Cr. V. iv. 9; squinny, to squint, look askance; stover, winter fodder for cattle:

Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,

And flat meads thatch’d with stover, them to keep.

Temp. IV. i. 62, 63.

Tetchy, peevish, irritable; trash, a cord used in checking dogs, a long slender rope fastened to the collar of a young pointer or setter if headstrong and inclined to run in:

If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash

For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,

I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.

Oth. II. i. 312–14.

Trencher-man, a term applied to a person with a good, hearty appetite; urchin, a hedgehog; utis, noise, confusion: ‘By the mass, here will be old utis,’ 2 Hen. IV, II. iv. 22; yare, ready, prepared; yerk, to strike hard, to beat.

Shakespearian Phrases in the Dialects

Among interesting expressions of Shakespeare’s date still existing in the dialects are: to burn daylight, to light candles before they are wanted; figuratively, to waste time:

Mercutio. … Come, we burn daylight, ho!

Rom. Nay, that’s not so.

Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.

Rom. and Jul. I. iv. 43–5.

Make a coil, Be in a taking

To make a coil, to make a stir, confusion, or fuss: ‘I am not worth this coil that’s made for me,’ King John, II. i. 165; come your ways, come here, Ham. I. iii. 135, Troil. and Cres. III. ii. 44; pass, condition, state, in phrases: ‘What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?’ Lear, III. iv. 65, ‘Till I be brought to such a silly pass,’ T. Shrew, V. ii. 124; to one’s head, to one’s face, e.g. I told him to his head that I wouldn’t have such goings on in my house any more (Sus.):

… he shall bring you

Before the duke, and to the head of Angelo

Accuse him home and home.

Meas. for Meas. IV. iii. 146–8.

To be helped up, used ironically: to be in a difficulty, e.g. What with the missis bad, and him out of work, they’re well helped up (War.). You’re prettily holp up, is a common expression of derision, cp.:

A man is well holp up that trusts to you;

I promised your presence and the chain;

But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.

Com. of Errors, IV. i. 22–4.

To be in a taking (gen. colloq. use), a state of excitement, grief, or perplexity; a fit of petulance or temper, cp. ‘What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket,’ Mer. Wives, III. iii. 191; a hole in the coat, a flaw or blemish in character or conduct, cp. ‘If I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind,’ Hen. V, III. vi. 87; to make the door, to shut or fasten the door: ‘Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement,’ A. Y. L. I. IV. i. 162; to stand one on, to be incumbent on, to be to one’s interest, cp.:

… For my state

Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

Lear, V. i. 68, 69.

A thing of nothing, a trifle, next to nothing, e.g. He bought a lot o’ taters for his cows, and got ’em for a thing o’ nothing (Chs.), cp.: Ham. The king is a thing— Guil. A thing, my lord? Ham. Of nothing, Ham. IV. ii. 30–32. Beside this exists also the parallel expression ‘a thing of naught’, in the dialects now, a thing of nowt: ‘You must say “paragon”: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught,’ Mids. N. D. IV. ii. 14, cp. ‘They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought,’ Isaiah xli. 12. Worth a Jew’s eye, of great value, e.g. Hoo mays a rare weife, hoo’s wo’th a Jew’s eye (Chs.), cp.:

There will come a Christian by,

Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.

M. of Ven. II. v. 42, 43.

Shakespeare’s Knowledge of Dialect

The Quartos and Folios read ‘a Jewes eye’, which is now considered the better reading. The expression the varsal world only differs by a normal change in pronunciation from Shakespeare’s ‘versal world’: ‘I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world,’ Rom. and Jul. II. iv. 220. Opinions differ as to the precise meaning of the second element in cock-shut, twilight, the close of the day, used also in the phrase cock-shut time:

Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,

Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop

Went through the army.

Rich. III, V. iii. 69–71.

The corresponding term for daybreak is cock-light. More sacks to the mill is a game played in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It is a rough-and-tumble boys’ game, in which as many boys as possible are heaped together, one above another. As each successive boy is added to the heap the boys shout: More sacks to the mill! cp.:

More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!

Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish.

L. L. L. IV. iii. 81, 82.

The ancient game of loggats has died out, but the term is still used to denote the small sticks or pieces of wood used in playing trunket and other games. Cp. ‘Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em? mine ache to think on’t,’ Ham. V. i. 100. Another Shakespearian game is the Nine Men’s Morris, also known as Merills: ‘The boyish game called Merils or five-penny Morris; played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns or men made of purpose and tearmed Merelles,’ Cotgrave, cp. ‘The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud,’ Mids. N. D. II. i. 98. Hunt’s up is an old pipe tune especially used by the waits on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning:

Hunsep through the wood, Hunsep through the wood,

Merrily goes the day, sir;

Get up old wives and bake your pies,

To-morrow is Christmas Day, sir.

Cp. ‘Hunting thee hence with hunt’s up to the day,’ Rom. and Jul. III. v. 34. From the derived sense of tumult, outcry, has been developed a verb used in the Lake District in the meaning of to scold, rate, abuse, e.g. He’ll hunsip thi fer thi pains. But, lest this list become wearisomely long, it shall close with the time-worn interjectional phrase: Adone, cease, leave off, cp. ‘Therefore ha’ done with words,’ T. Shrew, III. ii. 118.

Dr. Johnson’s Testimony

Dr. Johnson bears his testimony to Shakespeare’s knowledge of dialect and colloquial speech in the Preface to the Dictionary: ‘If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.’ But the Dictionary ‘was intended primarily to furnish a standard of polite usage, suitable for the classic ideals of the new age’ (v. Six Essays on Johnson, by Walter Raleigh, p. 82). Johnson, therefore, though he incorporated this ‘diction of common life’, did not hesitate to sit in judgment upon it when he thought fit. Take for example the phrase to make bold, which appears in the Dictionary thus: ‘to make bold. To take freedoms: a phrase not grammatical, though common. To be bold is better; as, I was bold to speak.

I have made bold to send to your wife;

My suit is, that she will to Desdemona

Procure me some access. Shakesp. Othello.’

Johnson’s Dictionary

(This—it may be mentioned in passing—is one of the cases where Johnson is quoting from memory, rather than from a printed text, as is shown by slight verbal inaccuracies, v. Oth. III. i. 35.) Or again: ‘To have rather. [This is, I think, a barbarous expression of late intrusion into our language, for which it is better to say will rather.]’ It is a very common phrase in Shakespeare, though Johnson does not here cite his authority.

Johnson’s Dialect

In the early days of Dictionaries a lexicographer impressed his work with the stamp of his own personality in a way which is impossible in modern times when Dictionary-making ranks among the abstract sciences. Johnson’s Dictionary is pre-eminently personal, betraying the author’s character and opinions at every turn; indeed, certain definitions, such as those of ‘lexicographer’, ‘grubstreet’, ‘pension’, ‘excise’, &c., have become the hackneyed illustrations wherever Johnson’s life and writings are discussed. It is not surprising, therefore, if we find in his treatment of dialect words some points of biographical interest. Certain of his views with regard to literature and language are plainly given in his Preface to the Dictionary: ‘I soon discovered that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve the labour of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty desarts of barren philology.’ Speaking of the difficulty of collecting words, he says: ‘the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of living speech. … That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner’s language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, or easy inquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting living information, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.’ But even a cursory glance through the pages of the Dictionary show that where the ‘living information’ was his own knowledge of the dialect words of his native county it was a ‘labour’ of love to glean them up and place them among his ‘verdure and flowers’, above the region of ‘boundless chaos’. Just as it can be shown from the internal evidence of their respective Dictionaries that Skinner belonged to Lincolnshire, Levins to Yorkshire, and Cotgrave to Cheshire, so it could be proved that Johnson belonged to Staffordshire, even if we had no other testimony outside his Dictionary. Some of the most striking of these evidences are as follows: ‘Lich. … A dead carcase; whence lichwake, the time or act of watching by the dead; lichgate, the gate through which the dead are carried to the grave; Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. Salve magna parens.’ ‘Kecksy. n.s. [commonly kex, cigue, French; cicuta, Latin. Skinner.] Skinner seems to think kecksy or kex the same as hemlock. It is used in Staffordshire both for hemlock, and any other hollow jointed plant.’ ‘Shaw. … A thicket; A small wood. A tuft of trees near Lichfield is called Gentle shaw.’ ‘Tup. n.s. [I know not of what original.] A ram. This word is yet used in Staffordshire, and in other provinces.’ In other cases, though he does not mention his own native county, he seems to be so familiar with the word in question, as belonging to rustic speech, that, with the evidence of its existence in the Midland dialects of to-day, we may safely assume that it was current in the Staffordshire dialect of his time. For example: ‘Huff. n.s. [from hove, or hoven, swelled: he is huffed up by distempers. So in some provinces we still say the bread huffs up, when it begins to heave or ferment: huff, therefore, may be ferment. To be in a huff is then to be in a ferment, as we now speak],’ cp. huff (Sh.I. Yks. Lei. Nhp. War.), to swell, puff up; to rise in baking, generally used with up. ‘Clees, n.s. The two parts of the foot of beasts which are cloven-footed. Skinner. It is a country word, and probably corrupted from claws,’ cp. clee (gen. dial. use in Eng.), claw. It represents 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’.