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If we are to avoid on the one hand the danger of regarding a dialect as nothing better than a wilful perversion of standard English, we yet must not allow ourselves to be beguiled by the smooth-running course of true sound-laws, or the rural charm of quaint words, into the opposite error of supposing that irregularities and distortions do not exist. There are in the dialects numbers of words which can only be regarded as corruptions and mispronunciations of literary English, but considered relatively to the whole vocabulary the proportion of them is very small. Many even of the most obvious are not without a certain interest as examples of popular etymology, or of practical word-formation, as, for instance, when smother and suffocate are blended into the useful word smothercate (Not.), or bold and audacious into boldacious (Der. Cor.). Some apparent corruptions are in reality old forms which can be found in the literary language in the earlier stages of its existence. For example: abuseful (Yks. Lin. War. Shr. Hrf. Glo.) for abusive is not uncommon in seventeenth-century literature, though it must have died out later, as it is not noted by lexicographers such as Bailey and Johnson. The word fancical (gen. dial.) for fanciful occurs in 1676 in a work entitled Musick’s Monument, by Mace. Druggister (Yks. Lin. Pem. e.An. Som. Cor.) for druggist is registered in Sherwood’s Dictionary (1672), ‘A druggister, drogueur.’

Or again, the dialect form may not be directly taken from the standard language, but may be traced back through some other linguistic channel which has influenced its development, e.g. angish (Irel.) is not a mispronunciation of anguish, but it is developed from the Gaelic form aingis. Squinacy (Sc. Irel.), and squinancy in the compound squinancy-berry (Cum. Lan. Ess.), the black currant, are not corruptions of quinsy, but are from O.French squinancie, quinsy. But I shall reserve the treatment of historical forms such as these for a later chapter.

Latin Phrases taken into the Dialects

A few Latin phrases have made their way into the dialects, where they have assumed curious forms and meanings. For example: hizy-prizy (Nhb. Yks. Chs. Der. Som. Dev.), a corruption of Nisi prius, a law-term. It is used to signify any kind of chicanery or sharp practice, or, used as an adjective, it means litigious, tricky; and in the phrase to be at hizy-prizy, it means to be quarrelsome, disagreeable. The plural form momenty-morries (Nhb.), skeletons, stands for memento mori, remember that thou must die, the name given to a small decorative object containing a skeleton or other emblem of death, cp. ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a Death’s-head or a memento mori,’ 1 Hen. IV, III. iii. 35. The Latin nolens volens appears as nolus-bolus (Wil.), nolum-wolum (Wil. Dev.), hoylens-voylens, oilins-boilins (Cum.). A mother sending off an unwilling child to school will say: Oilins-boilins, but thee shall go. Nominy (Nhb. Dur. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Nhp.) represents the Latin nomine in the formula In Nomine Patris, &c., the invocation used by the preacher before the sermon. It means: (1) a rigmarole, a long rambling tale, a wordy, tiresome speech; (2) a rhyming formula or folk-rhyme. A knitting nominy used by girls in Northamptonshire is as follows:

Needle to needle, and stitch to stitch,

Pull the old woman out of the ditch.

If you ain’t out by the time I’m in,

I’ll rap your knuckles with my knitting-pin.

Paddy-noddy, or Parinody (Yks. Lin.), a long tedious rigmarole, a cock and bull story, is a corruption of Pater noster. The form non-plush (many dials.), a nonplus, dilemma, surprise, usually occurs in the phrase: at, or on a non-plush, e.g. I was taken all on a non-plutch. Vady (Sus. Dev.) is a shortened form of vade mecum, used to denote a small leather cylinder, containing change of raiment, and other small comforts of the traveller.

The French rendezvous appears as randivoo, randivoose (Dev. Cor.), randybow (Nhb. Chs. Dev.), rangevouge (Cor.), meaning a noise, an uproar, but the literary sense remains in the verb rumsey-voosey (Wil.), e.g. He went a rumsey-voosing down the lane to meet his sweetheart.

Corruptions and Mispronunciations

Jommetry is interesting for the sake of its meaning. It is used in Gloucestershire in the sense of magic; anything supported in a mysterious and unknown manner might be said to hang by jommetry; the phrase all of a jommetry means in pieces or tatters. Lattiprack (Wil.) for paralytic is a strange distortion. Hapsherrapsher (Cum. Lakel.) for haphazard is equally unreasonable, but agreeable withal. Forms like solintary (Nrf.) for solitary, skelington or skelinton (Yks. Lan. Stf. War. Wor. Shr. Glo. w.Cy. Dor.) for skeleton, have acquired an intrusive n in common with many words in the literary language, as messenger, scavenger, &c. Skelet (Sc. Lin. Cor.) is not a corruption, but a pure French form, cp. ‘Scelete, a skeleton,’ Cotgrave. Pronunciations such as: chimbly (var. dials.) for chimney; singify (Yks. Lan. Der. Brks. e.An. Hmp. I.W.) for signify; synnable (Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Shr. Suf. Ken.) for syllable; ulster (Cor.) for ulcer; pumptial (Not. Rut. Lei. Shr. Som.) for punctual; turmit or turmut (gen. dial.) for turnip, can all be accounted for phonetically. Hantle (Sc. Irel. and n. counties to War. Wor. Shr.) is a perfectly legitimate contraction of handful, but besides the ordinary meaning, it can also denote a large quantity. A story is told of a Scotch minister who alluded in his sermon to the fact that a number of his flock had joined the Baptists, thus: I thocht till ha’e gethered ye under my wings, as a hen gethereth her chickens, but a hantle o’ ye ha’e turn’t oot to be deuks, an’ ta’en to the water.

A ‘nice Derangement of Epitaphs’

Occasionally one literary word is mistaken for another, and adopted in its place, as, for instance, information (Lin. Sus. Som. Dev.) used for inflammation; sentiment (Lin. Nrf.) for sediment. A farmer having been asked if he would clean out a pond, replied: No, sir, I can’t undertake the job; there’s a sight of sentiment in that there pit. Profligate (Shr. Dev.) for prolific is a surprising change of adjective, especially when applied to the guileless and innocent. I remember my old nurse, when she took to minding chickens because we had outgrown the need of her daily ministrations, telling me that she had collected a ‘sitting’ of a certain kind of eggs, because she thought it would produce ‘a profligate hatch’. This is paralleled by the use of reprobate for probationer. The Vicar’s daughter asked a young girl if she had joined the parochial Guild. The reply was: Oh, yes, Miss! Last week I were took in as a reprobate (Lin.). A youth writing home from Canada to his father the village blacksmith, in describing the Coronation festivities in the city where he dwelt, wrote: The soldiers fired three volumes. A rheumatic old woman, who had been taken with several others for an excursion on a very hot day, said to me: Have you heard what a very nice exertion we had yesterday? Quite recently too, I was told of a man who had been ‘crossed in love’ in his youth, that he had been a woman-atheist ever since. One is constantly reminded of Mrs. Malaprop and her ‘nice derangement of epitaphs’. Unction (Sc.) for auction, with its derivative unctioneer, is probably a phonetic change; and the same may be said of ivory (Irel. Not. Lin. Rut. Hrt. e.An.) for ivy. The use of persecute for prosecute may be merely the result of confusion of prefixes, as in: discommode, dismolish, mislest, perdigious, preverse. The use of the native prefix un- where the standard language has im-, in-, &c., is very frequent. For instance, unpossible occurs in all the dialects in Scotland, Ireland, and England. Other examples are: undecent (many dials.), unlegal (Yks. Midl. War. Hrf.), unregular (many dials.), unsensible (Sc. Dur. Yks. War. Sur.), unpatient (Sc. Dur. Lan.), unpeaceable (Yks. Som.), unperfect (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Som.), unpassable (Sc. Yks. Som.). The three last were once good literary forms, and may be found with quotations from learned authors in Johnson’s Dictionary. Beside unconvenient there exists in many dialects the useful compound ill-convenient. Unhonest for dishonest, though now a dialect form, occurs in literature of the sixteenth century.

Curious Prefixes and Suffixes

Sometimes the prefix un- is a superfluous addition, as in: unbeneath (n.Yks.), beneath; unempt (Nhp. Hrf. Oxf. Bdf. Wil.), to empty; ungive (Lan. Chs. Lei. Nhp. Bdf. Hnt.), to relax, give way, thaw, though this last form has the support of early literary evidence. But on the other hand, un- is used in the formation of practical native words, for which the standard language substitutes words of foreign extraction, for example: uncome (Sc. Wm. Yks. Lan. Lin.), not arrived; unfain (Sc. Yks.), reluctant; unhandy (Pem. Glo. Ken. Dor.), incapable; unfriend (Sc. Nhb. Yks. Not. Hrf. Dev.), an enemy. Ungone (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Lin.), not gone, not sent, is merely making one simple word out of two, with no gain in meaning, but ‘he’s just ungone’, for ‘he is at the point of death’, rises almost into poetic simplicity. In the hybrid form unheeastie (n.Yks.), indolent, we have an old word which recalls the ‘lowly asse’ of Spenser’s Una:

One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way,

From her unhastie beast she did alight,

And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay

In secret shadow, far from all mens sight.

(F.Q. I. iii.)

It would be easy to collect together a large number of words with curiously assorted suffixes, and many of these words are decidedly effective. To quote a few examples: affordance (Cum.), ability to meet expense; abundation (Chs. Shr. Stf. Wor. Hrf. Glo.), abundance; blusteration (Cum. Lin.), the act of blustering; prosperation (Yks. Chs. Shr.), prosperity, as used in the old toast at public dinners, Prosperation to the Corporation; comparishment (Irel.), comparison; timeous (Sc. Irel.), timely; timmersome (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), timorous; unnaturable (Yks. Lan. Lin. Nhp.), unnatural. Corruptions not infrequently are due to the blending of one word with another; for instance, champeron (Oxf. Brks.) is a contamination of champignon and mushroom, M.E. muscheron, Fr. mousseron; jococious (n.Cy. Yks. Ess.) is a compound of jocose and facetious; obsteer (Lin.), sulky, awkward, is an amalgamation of obstinate and austere; tremense (Ken.) embraces both tremendous and immense; thribble (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Der. Not. Lei. War. Wor. Ess. Ken.) is treble under the influence of three; boldrumptious (Ken.) is the magnificent product of bold, and rumpus, and presumptuous, and its meaning may be gathered from such a sentence as: that there upstandin’, boldrumptious, blowsing gal of yours came blarin’ down to our house. Battle-twig (Yks. Stf. Der. Not. Lin. Lei. Nhp.), an earwig, is a corruption of beetle + earwig, contaminated with battle + twig.

Corruptions due to popular Etymology

Closely akin to these are the corruptions due to what is called popular etymology, where an unfamiliar word or syllable becomes converted into a familiar one. Occasionally it is possible to trace some association of meaning to account for the change in pronunciation, as when week-days becomes wicked-days (w.Cy. Som.), probably with an idea of contra-distinction to Sundays and Holy Days. Illify (Lakel. Cum. Yks. Lan. Stf. Lin.) for vilify explains itself. The common example given to illustrate this change is the standard English word belfry. Dr. Johnson states the case thus: ‘Belfry. n.s. [Beffroy, in French, is a tower; which was perhaps the true word, till those, who knew not its original, corrupted it to belfry, because bells were in it].’ One is tempted to suggest that madancholy (Yks. Lan.) for melancholy started life as a descriptive term for victims of melancholia, but unfortunately there is the fact that just in those districts where the word occurs, mad does not mean insane, but annoyed, angry, and the suggestion is shown to be absurd. Madancholy must therefore rank with the great majority of corruptions due to sound-change, typified by the hackneyed form sparrow-grass for asparagus. Jerusalem artichoke for girasole artichoke is recognized as standard English, so also is gooseberry. Dr. Johnson has: ‘Gooseberry. n.s. [goose and berry, because eaten with young geese as sauce].’ Modern philologists, however, scorn this simple solution, and referring us to a French original, they say gooseberry is a corruption of *groise-berry, or *grose-berry. In Marshall’s Rural Economy of Yorkshire (1796) we find the form grossberry, and this gross- is the same as the element gros- in French groseille, a gooseberry. The Scotch form is groset. The pronunciation cowcumber (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.) for cucumber was early recognized as corrupt. A paragraph in a book called The English Physitian Enlarged (seventeenth century) is entitled: ‘Cucumers, or (according to the pronuntiation of the Vulgar) cowcumbers.’ Other examples from various dialects are: ash-falt for asphalt; brown-kitus, brown-titus, brown-typhus for bronchitis; chiny oysters (Wil.) for China asters; Polly Andrews (Glo. Wil.) for polyanthus; rosydendrum (Chs.) for rhododendron; curly-flower (Lin.) for cauliflower; fair-maid (Cor.) for fumade, fumadoe, a cured (formerly smoked) pilchard, Sp. fumado, smoked; hairy-sipples for erysipelas; the janders (many dials.) for jaundice; a-kingbow, king-bow (Som.), for akimbo; pockmanteau (Sc. Nhb. Lin.) for portmanteau, but the substitution of pock- for port-is probably due to association of meaning with pock, a bag, sack, or wallet; airy-mouse, hairy-mouse, raw-mouse (Hmp. I.W. Wil.), rye-mouse (Glo. Wil.), for rear-mouse, the bat, O.E. hrēre-mūs; screwmatic (War. Nrf.) for rheumatic; tooth-and-egg (Nhb. Lan. Der. Not. Lin.) for tutenag, an alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel. Years ago—years and years and donkey’s ears, as the saying is—when motor-cars were yet unborn, and when even tram-cars were unknown to country children, I can remember my father trying to explain to the little carol-singers at Christmastime, that they had introduced a corrupt reading into the text of their carol, when they sang:

The moon and the stars

Stopped their fiery ears,

And listened while Gabriel spoke.

‘The rustic Etymologer

Now and then we meet with a deliberate attempt on the part of dialect speakers themselves to explain the mysteries of word-derivation. The writer of a book entitled The Folk and their Word-Lore tells of ‘the rustic etymologer’ who explained that the reason why partridges are so called is ‘because … they love to lie between the furrows of ploughed land, and so part the ridges’. Further, he tells us that: ‘a cottager lamenting that one of a litter of puppies had a hare-lip (divided like that of the hare), or, as she pronounced it, air-lip, explained that it was so called because it admitted the air through the cleft, which prevented the little creature sucking properly.’ But these are not the folk who are responsible for the absurd popular etymology which associates the modern colloquial and slang use of the word lark with the O.E. lāc sb., joyous activity, sport, lācan vb., to play, and with the dialect lake (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Not. Lin. Glo.), to play, sport, amuse oneself. This error is the invention of non-philological people who speak standard English. It could not have been propounded by any one who uses the word lake, nor by any one who understands English philology. O.E. lācan would have given in standard English, and in most of the above-mentioned dialects, a form loke, and under no circumstances could it have acquired the r. Apparently to lark is a verb made from the substantive lark, the bird. O.E. lācan has died out, but its Scandinavian cognate O.N. leika, to play, sport, remains in the dialect form lake.

For mere distortion and mispronunciation a good illustration is the variety of dialect shapes which the word breakfast assumes, such as: bracksus, brecksus, brockwist, buckwhist, &c. A remark often heard in Ireland is: Well, I have the price av me supper now, an’ God is good for the brukwust. Dacious (Lin. Som.), impudent, rude, is an aphetic form of audacious, e.g. Of all th’daacious lads I iver seed oor Sarah’s Bill’s th’daaciousest. Demic (Yks. Not. Lin.), the potato-disease, is an aphetic form of epidemic; similarly pisle (Yks.), a narration of any kind, is an aphetic form of epistle. Obstropolous, a corruption of obstreperous, and obligate for oblige, are in general dialect use in Scotland, Ireland, and England.