Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/233

 iv. SEPT. 2,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 191 moment. Witness the Scotch first foot met in the morning. Do we not all feel inclined to say " Good morning !" to this person, as we feel inclined to say " Good night! " to one met in the dark 1 Possibly ray experience may be of use to others. I have found the best prescription against hysteria and de- pression to get up on first awaking. The second sleep does not refresh. To call for Southern to call names is note- worthy, but this latter expression seems to need explaining. Is it not a common phrase " To be called in church," meaning to have one's banns read out ? Yorksh. neif, A.-S. nief, are to be sounded itif, I presume. Have they congeners 1 Most important query of all: Why do Yorkshiremen call themselves tykes ? Is not tyke related in origin and meaning to dog 1 Dorj has been adopted in modern sporting French as dogue. Is it related to duke, due 1 Whence the etiquette that hunting dogs must never be called dogs, but always hounds 1 Hound and hund, though related to KW-OS and cdnis, are good Teutonic. Can Yorkshire tykes be a survival of Norse sea- dogs? The people of the dales are Scan- dinavian, tall, fair, bold, proud, exclusive, hospitable, and their speech sounds like Norse to a stranger. Possible parallels are Shakespeare's "dogs of war" and "the lion of the North." ".Dog of a Jew" is quite different, and smacks of the scavengers of Oriental cities. Gares I take to be related to yore, gorse, and gooseberry. But why is a small wood called a rush t Has this aught to do with rasher, a thin slice 1 Batter, I believe, is a builders' word for slant; is it related to batten? Fastening penny, for earnest money in connexion with statute fairs (ferice?), suggests a possible relation to festa. Statties for statute fairs is common in the South. Crow or crate for rook is good old English, as in the phrase "as the crow flies." A carrion-crow does not fly so straight. To lead corn or hay is also Southern. To theek their nest is found in some old poet. The ket of ketlocks puzzles me. In Herts they call the wild mustard carlock. It is now grown to be ploughed in as green manure. Formerly, before the Education Acts, children were turned into the cornfields to pull it, getting their hands black. Beasts is the common word in Essex, and probably elsewhere, for oxen. I do not understand in by and out by as coal-mining words. Otchin is doubtless urchin, originally a hedgehog, as sea-urchin, the prickly echinus, shows. A saft day and a soft body are not quite alike. A soft day is a wet or damp day. Soft is Lancashire for foolish (? with softening brain). A Sunday-school child in Liverpool, asked what a soft answer meant, replied, "Please, 'm, foolish." Your correspondent, I take it, does not suggest that sad bread is related to sally lunn. Was there not an eponymous Sally Lunn as well as a real Charlotte who first made apple charlotte ? In /wWoc/4=fullne88 is the suffix -lock parallel to that in wed-lock? I cannot interpret to side for to tidy, unless it be to put stray things from the table aside. I think fettle has spread beyond Yorkshire. I suggest its connexion with fac-ere, fait, factor (Scottish for agent). This will explain fettle t/tee="to give a thrashing to," as to do for you. I notice if I bring strawberries to a poor Mercian or East Anglian he says, "Come again." If I offer to read a parable or hymn he says, " You can if you like " ; but I think he has the same courteous intention as the Yorkshire tyke. A native of Burnley, in East Lancashire, tells me that (waiter, for the water, is rather East Lancashire than Yorkshire. In York- shire, he tells me, they say th'watter, but use t' for the article before a vowel, as t'arch- deacon. T. WILSON. Harpenden. The interesting article on ' Yorkshire Dia- lect' is another proof of the extent to which "dialect" is merely a survival of old-time words and phrases, and of how much there is in common between the dialects of different districts. The following words quoted by your correspondent are in common use in Lowland Scotch, and are no doubt considered by many to be peculiar to that dialect:— " Siping " (" seeping"), soaking. " Middin," ashes, ash heap. " Smittle," infectious (" a smittle hoast," an infectious cold). 1 Kittle," fickle, uncertain. ' Dyke," ditch, but also wall. ' Neif," fist. ' Kep," catch. ' Sag," cave in. 1 Fest," binding a bargain. " Handfest." "Gate, "street. "Seet," "sight," quantity. "Rotten," rat. " Foomart," polecat. "Crow," rook. " Reeky chimbley," smoky chimney. " Stocks," sheaves. " Lead," carry (hay). " Theek wer ricks," thatch our stacks. "Big," build.