Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/208

 170 iv. AU«. 26. iocs. NOTES AND QUERIES, YORKSHIRE DIALECT. (10th S. iv. 102.) ME. DIJNNINGTON-JEFFERSON'S excellent and stimulating paper on the Yorkshire dialect has impelled me to add a few notes. In this part of the sister county of Lincoln— that is to say, the wapentakes of Manley and Corringham—we always speak of the "tatie demuck," not "deinick," as in York- shire; but I have frequently heard the latter form used here by men who have been engaged in the potato trade and whose " come fra" has been the neighbourhood of Leeds or Manchester. It once led to a curious mis- understanding. When the potato disease had but recently spread over the Isle of Axholme, the late Kev. James Aspinall, a former rector of Althorpe, was talking to some neighbouring farmers on a political question of the hour, and in support of a statement he had made he quoted The Spectator newspaper. "Well, really me," exclaimed one of nis auditors, "what queer names them Lunnun chaps does give to their newspapers nowadays! Why, I lay owt they 've called that paper th' parson 's talk- ing on The Speckt-tater all upon account o' us by th1 Trent Side heviri1 th' tatie-demmuck." I do not call to mind hearing "market- fresh " from a genuine Lincolnshire tongue. "Market-merry" is our term, though "fresh," standing alone, is in common use for slightly the worse for drink. The following was said in answer to inquiries made by me a few days after our summer fair: "I didn't see nobody drunk—no, nor not to say fresh ; but there was two or three what you may call market-merry like." "Qare" or "gareing" has the same mean- ing here as in Yorkshire; but "gareing" is by far the commoner term. " Vij landes and ij garinges cont. iij acres " occurs in a terrier of lands of John Dyon in Little (Jarlton in 1574; and in a survey of the manor of Kirton- in-Lindsey, taken in 1787, mention is made of " the gare in the great ings." " Delfin " I do not remember to have heard ; but " delf " occurs here, meaning a drain that has been delved out—not a natural beck. "For setting fences and cutting a delf, 14 days, Zl. 2s." (Bottesford Moors Accounts, 1812). Phineas Fletcher uses " delft." He says :— Some lesser delfts, the fountain's bottom sounding Draw out the baser streams." 'Purple Island,'III. 13. No one here would use " sag " as the equiva- lent for caving in. With us "sag" means to bend, to warp, to sink in the middle; a gate or a door " sags" when made of wood not properly dried. To cave in as a bank does when undermined or when the batter is too steep is commonly pronounced "cauve," and the soil which slips down is called the " cauf." A little boy was standing watching some labourers at work on the bank of a drain ; one of the men suddenly called out to his fellow-workmen, " Tak heed, lads, there's a cauf commin." The child did not know this meaning of the word, so gazed around [lira, thinking he should see one of his father's alves coming to join the party. John Wesley, as quoted in 'N. & Q.,' 4th S. xii. 166, says, '' He was sitting cleaving stones, when bhe rock calved in upon him." With us a stile is a "steel," not a "stee." A "stee" is a ladder; the word is in constant use. "To John Pickerin for a stee " (Kirton-in-Lindsey Churchwardens' Accounts, 1623). The word " asshet" I never heard in Lincolnshire, and from inquiries I have made I have come to the conclusion that it is obsolete. It once existed in the south of the county, for in an inventory of the goods of the Gild of the B.V. Mary of Boston, taken in 1534, we find "an assett of Syluer xx ounces." We lead our corn and hay, and do not talk of carrying it, as the agricultural newspapers do, except when we have it on our oacks. This use of the word "lead" points to time when the traffic of the country was carried on by packhorses, which were led in single file. Owre carte shal be lede And fecchen vs vytailleB. ' Piers the Plowman,' B text, pass. ij. 1. 179. "Wick" is still retained by us in the sense of alive, lively. An active child is "as wick as an eel." "Are you afraid of going across the churchyard in the dark?" a young lady inquired or an old woman. The reply was, '' Lor' bless yer noa, miss ! It isn't dead uns I 'm scar'd on, it's wick uns." " I niver knew such an a thing afore in all my wick," was said to the writer some thirty years ago by a person dwelling at Ashby, near Brigg. I heard at the village of Yaddlethorpe, some five years after, a mother scolding her child. Among other threats, she said, "I'll skin ye wick." This threat with us usually takes the more modern form of " I '11 skin ye alive." The older spelling " quick " is nearly extinct except when used regarding the thorn plants of which hedges are made. You still some- times hear of a "quickset-hedge." In 1709 Arthur Younge, of Keadby, bequeathed to his son all his farm implements and " all my other quick cattle."