English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day.

English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day.
Leetle, a diminutive of little.  “I never see one of these here gurt men there’s s’much talk about in the peapers, only once, and that was up at Smiffle Show adunnamany years agoo.  Prime minister, they told me he was, up at London; a leetle, lear, miserable, skinny-looking chap as ever I see.  ‘Why,’ I says, ’we do{a}nt count our minister to be much, but he’s a deal primer-looking than what yourn be.’” (Gurt, great; Smiffle, Smithfield; adunnamany, I don’t know how many; lear, thin, hungry; see, saw.)

  Sarment, a sermon.  “I likes a good long sarment, I doos; so as
  when you wakes up it ain’t all over.”

Tempory (temporary), slight, badly finished.  “Who be I?  Why, I be John Carbury, that’s who I be!  And who be you?  Why, you ain’t a man at all, you ain’t!  You be naun but a poor tempory creetur run up by contract, that’s what you be!”
Tot, a bush; a tuft of grass.  “There warn’t any grass at all when we fust come here; naun but a passel o’ gurt old tots and tussicks.  You see there was one of these here new-fashioned men had had the farm, and he’d properly starved the land and the labourers, and the cattle and everything, without it was hisself.” (Passel, parcel; tussicks, tufts of rank grass.)

  Twort (for thwart), pert and saucy.  “She’s terrible twort—­she
  wants a good setting down, she do; and she’ll get it too.  Wait till
  my master comes in!”

  Winterpicks, blackthorn berries.

  Winter-proud, cold.  “When you sees so many of these here
  winterpicks about, you may be pretty sure ‘twill be middlin’
  winter-proud.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ancren Riwle; ed.  Jas. Morton.  Camden Soc., 1873. (About 1230.)

Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter.  Surtees Society.  London, 1843-7. 2 vols. (See p. 25.)

Beda.—­Venerabilis Bedae Historiae Ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum Libri III, IV; ed.  J.E.B.  Mayor, M.A. and J.R.  Lumby, B.D.  Cambridge, 1878.

——­ The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History; also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (both in English).  Ed. J.A.  Giles, D.C.L.  London, 1859. (In Bohn’s Library.)

Dictionaries containing dialect words. (See p. 100.)

Durham Ritual.—­Rituale Ecclesi{ae} Dunelmensis.  Surtees Society.  London, 1840.

Earle, Rev. J.; Anglo-Saxon Literature.  London, S.P.C.K., 1884.

E.D.D.—­English Dialect Dictionary (to which is appended the English Dialect Grammar); ed.  Dr Joseph Wright.  Oxford, 1898-1905.

E.D.S.—­English Dialect Society, publications of the.  London, 1873-96.

E.E.T.S.—­Early English Text Society, publications of the.  London, 1864-1910. (Contains Alliterative Poems, Ayenbite of Inwyt, Barbour’s Bruce, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, St Juliana, Kentish Sermons, Lyndesay’s Works, etc.)

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English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.