Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/291

 12 s. vi. MAY -22, 19200 NOTES AND QUERIES.

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A Contribution to an Essex Dialect Dictionary. By Edward Gepp. (Routledge.)

THIS very interesting and praiseworthy piece o^ work is the result, the author tells us, of seventeen years' observation in the three contiguous parishes of High Easter, Felsted and Little Dunmow. It is to be hoped that it will stimulate other observers ; and that thereby an adequate dialect dictionary for Essex may be compiled before the ancient speech of the county is irre- trievably lost beneath the combined invasion of quasi-literary and Cockney speech.

The book falls into two main parts, a dictionary and a grammar. Into both Mr. Gepp has ad- mitted many elements which are common to his county with its neighbours, not to say with great part of rustic England : yet the true and sole Essex vocabulary, when separated out from this, remains both frequent and delightful.

If we venture a few suggestions in the way of additions or corrections, it is because this volume strikes us as a nucleus worth developing. Thus, should not " burnfire " be " burninftre " or, at any rate, the latter form be given as an alternative ? " Comical " in the sense of touchy and irritable is worth noting, and also its use in connection with weather. " Gathering " in the sense of a collection we can affirm to be by no means obsolete : and we would protest that it is by no means confined to a church collection. Under " Kilterment " might have been noticed its common use for tools. We were surprised at being told that the " Lord of the harvest " is now but a memory : by no means, we should say. Under " mort " should have been mentioned such an expression as " he's a mort" meaning he is likely to die. " Tares," we would urge, are a trefolium " sainfoin " often, but not exclusively grown as fodder for horses. The " tinging o' bees " the attraction of a swarm by the beating of tins and kettles has been omitted. And we would have liked a note of the curious Essex way of speaking of the direction of the wind as blowing from such or such a locality " wind 's blowing from Brumfel Corner."

The French element is rather striking, and so is the not infrequent prevalence traceable, it is true, in all dialect, of forms which have a forgotten, or half-forgotten literary authority. Is not the use of the third person for the second when addressing any one a survival of a form of courtesy which is still not unusual in more than one European country itself a survival of a most ancient complex of custom and belief ? We might even say that our young ladies in shops are reviving it in England.

The use of " does " and " don't " for " if so," " if not " is exceedingly interesting " Stop that cryin' ; don't I'll larn ye," " you mustn't do that, does you'll get wrong " are the instances Mr. Gepp gives of it ; and this brings us to say that, where a good deal depends on apt illustration which is not always easy to hit offi, we think he may he congratulated on. success.

There are one or two words recorded here which are not in the ' Dialect Dictionary,'

such as " pudd'n-spoiler " a long sermon r " plenties " ; and ' dorn out," to arrange the- furniture of a room. The Addenda include- several amusing things, for example, " disannul " in the sense of do away with, or disturb (" let th'owd hen set where she loike ; if ye disannul she, y'ou 't get no luck) which suggests the coming: up of a modern dialect ; or " to make a path " in the senses of " to pay your way " (a couldn't never put by much, on'y jest made a path) and " to tidy up " in housework. Is it really " unliterary " to use the possessive pronoun withv reference to meals ? "I want, my dinner " seems on the whole, more natural to say than " I want dinner," and hardly to carry any nuance of dialect.

Malapropisms especially in the matter of medical terms form an entertaining minor- feature of dialect, and Mr. Gepp has given a sufficient number of such specimens.

Those who know the Essex dialect will have no.- difficulty in guessing at much which want of space, constrains us to omit : we trust, however, that we have said enough of this book to engage the attraction of lovers of the subject, and to justify our offering the author in conclusion, our hearty congratulations on what must have been a labour/ of love and delight.

The Oxford University Press General Catalogue, 1920.

THE first edition of this General Catalogue was issued in 1916. The second edition, now before us, running to 480 closely printed pages, includes all. books published and on sale December 31, 1919. Of these the earliest Oxford book still on sale, was published in 1799 being Woide's Coptic New Testament, the title-page whereof is here repro- duced. The Catalogue, diversified by several such illustrations, is divided into six sections, and ' is followed by an Alphabetical List (subjects and authors in the one alphabet), which, besides the reference to the main work, gives prices and anr indication of the series, if any. to which each book belongs, and so can be used independently. We have spent some time with considerable enjoy- ment in looking through this admirable volume a compilation upon which the (unmentioned) authors are much to be congratulated. One- section which, by chance, attracted us is that of the Translations, in which several most interesting items appear. The compiler of this portion, in most instances, introduces each work with a quotation from text or preface, and above the- entry of Phillimore's ' Propertius ' is printed a sentence to the effect that " the incipient senile ataxy " of English renders our language " pecu- liarly favourable to translation." This quasi- medical precision seems rather to defeat its owni object as to conveying the writer's meaning r but, so far as we understand this, we feel inclined to dispute it. This, however, is wandering away from the Catalogue. The histories of the ' D.N.B.* and the N.E.D. are the subject of interesting notes the date of the transfer of the former to the University might well have been recorded.

We note that Sir E. Maunde Thompson's ' Shakespeare's Handwriting ' is mentioned in the - company of Mr. Clark's ' Descent of Manuscripts -A Sir Harry Johnston's ' Bantu Vocabularies,' Mr. Barnard's 'Casting Counters' and Mr.