Page:Glossary of words in use in Cornwall.djvu/90

 e9 INTRODUCTION. During a long and intiinaie acquaintance with the folk of East Cornwall, it has been my liabit to make note of such words as are in common use among them, but which have now dropped^ or are dropping, out of the talk of cultured society. Many of these good words, obsolete or obsolescent in polite English, hardly deserve their fate, but should be retained as brief, apt, and vivid expressions of thought^ only to be represented otherwise by verbose and Often clumsy periphrase. Oar greatest authors were glad to use them, and their persistent survival, both in sound and sense, in the rustic talk, should be a plea for their restoration to modem English speech. In the' presence of the English Dialect Society, I have shrunk from giving many etymological remarks, and those I have ventured on may be taken as mere surplusage, to be accepted or rejected. I have given such instances of their use by our Middle English and earlier Modem English writers as my memory and scant shelves supply me with. A few of the peculiarities of our speech, common in many parti- culars to the south-western dialects generally, but differing from the spoken English of to-day, are here given : — A. The past participle of verbs has often the affix a (the Anglo- Saxon ge)f as a-zeed, Orheerd. There are many, but ill-defined, irregularities in the accentuation of this vowel, as ddi for slate, iaMe iai tackle. D is commonly elided from the termination of words, as hansy bands ; groun^ ground ; e. g, '* I owed 'n vorty pouns." jET. 671. This old English mode of ending the adjective is retained