Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/91

i 2 s. ix. JULY 23, 19*1.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 69 (see 12 S. viii. 481).—A good many of these words and phrases are in common use in Nottinghamshire and neighbouring counties, and some, I venture to say, all over England. The following I have heard familiarly in the county named:—

Allowance, or more commonly 'lowance. Usually it means beer given in return for some special service, but it may include victuals.

Bergamy pears: bergamot pears.

Bright as bright. This form of speech is common with many adjectives.

First off: first.

Forelong: before long.

Gahmy: (pronounced gawmy) sticky.

Hap (=happen): perhaps; as "Happen I shall?"

Plat : a plot of grass; usually as grass-plat.

Postes (disyllable), often as poses.

Shackle about. This seems allied to our shacking about, idling. Another form of the word is shucky, idle. A nickname of a labourer on my father's farm was "Shucky Jack." A man always at a loose end is called a "shackbag."

Spindly: said of anything that seems to have run up beyond its strength; tall but weakly.

Shatter: said of corn that sheds its grain.

Strangely: very much; as "strangely put out."

Several of these are heard in Lincolnshire. In that county alone have I heard flash as a name for a pool of water. "The Flash" is the address of an old friend of mine.

"How's yourself"; "of no account"; "Scotch fiddle"; "slug"; "vally"; "whop"; and a few other of the list at the above reference one hears almost everywhere. It is strange that the flower names, "lady's smock" and "milkmaids," are not to be found in dialect dictionaries. They are both in the 'O.E.D.'

" OPINIONATION " : " INNUMEROUS."- ' Main Street,' by Sinclair Lewis ("first printing, October, 1920 " ; " eighteenth printing, March, 1921 "), has been hailed in some reviews as an epoch-making novel: It is undoubtedly clever, though written very often in a phraseology which few people on this side of the Atlantic can be quite certain that they understand. The use of dialect and slang, however, is one thing, and the coining of new English words quite another. The two words at the head of this note will serve for examples. The author, at p. 183, says that the heroine " sough b to dismiss all the or. inionation of an insurgent era " ; and at p. 196 he refers to her intention not to have children till she could afford them as " this sacrifice to her opiniona- tion." What does " opinionation " mean ? Presumably the same as the hideous word " opinionatediiess " ; but why should we have two hideous words, when perhaps even one is unnecessary ? Would not dogmatism do ? At p. 210 the author writes of " Swedish families with innumerous children." Why this unnecessary new Latinism ? In- numerable is a much more musical word. JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT. BATHWOMEN. It is well known that in the public baths in Sweden there are women attendants who wash the visitors from head to foot, be they male or female. Travellers in Sweden who read ' N. & Q.' may be ii- terested to be reminded that the same cus- tom existed in Homeric times. T6v S'errfl ovv Sfjupal ova~av KOI picrav eXattp (Od. viii, 454). So true is it that there is nothing new under the sun. T. PERCY ARMSTRONG. 2, Whitehall Court, S.W. APPRECIATION OF CHEDDAR CHEESE IN 1681. In the Historical MSS. Commission's Report on the MSS. of the Duke of Portland extracts are given from a MS. describing a journey from Oxford to Cambiidge by Thos. *Baskerville in May, 1681, to which are attached some rhymes, called proverbs, of which the following are the first twelve lines : A Dunstable lark and straw hats. An Essex calf, St. Albans straw tankards and pots, A Cheddar cheese, A Warfleet oyster, Herefordshire cyder, Derby ale, An Ock eel, A March hare, A Whitney blanket, A Flanders mare. A Lancashire lass. And Hampshire honey is current goods for your money. R. HEDGER WALLACE. FIRE AT SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL IN SPRING, 1921. As far as I am aware no English newspaper, religious or profane, considered that it had readers of sufficient culture and i intelligence to care for details of a catas- I trophe which The Times glanced at through Le Matin and Le Petit Parisien, and assured us that the event had prostrated with grief the octogenarian archbishop " Cardinal de iHerrera de la Iglesia" " de la Iglesia " I should have been translated, of the Church. The burning of one of the departments of Harrods Stores would have gained greater