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TWENTY-SECOND REPORT OF

THE COMMITTEE ON DEVONSHIRE VERBAL

PROVINCIALISMS.

WITH A SUPPLEMENT TO INDEX OF WORDS PUBLISHED IN VOL. XL.

TWENTY-SECOND REPORT of the Committee consisting of Mr. J. S. Amery, Dr. Brushfield, Mr. C. H. Laycock, Rev. G. D. Melhuish, Miss Helen Saunders, Mrs. RoseTroup, and the Rev. O. J. Reichel (Secretary)—for the purpose of noting and recording the existing use of any Verbal Provincialisms in Devonshire, in either written or spoken language, not included in the lists published in the Transactions of the Association.

Edited by CHARLES H. LAYCOCK.

(Read at Launceston, 27th July, 1909.)

IN presenting their Twenty-second Report, your Committee are glad to see a considerable increase in the number of contributions over those of last year, which shows that interest in the subject is not flagging. For the benefit of new members and those who may not have copies of the earlier Reports, your Committee have decided to reprint, with slight modifications, the Rules and Regulations, which have not been printed since the Ninth Report in

1886.

RESOLUTIONS.

In the year 1877, at the Kingsbridge meeting (Trans. IX, 123), the Committee on Devonshire Verbal Provincialisms (of which Mr. F. H. Firth was then Hon.

Secretary) passed the following Resolutions for the guidance of contributors:

I. To regard as a Devonshire Provincialism, if used by a speaker or writer in Devonshire, irrespective of its being or not being used elsewhere:

(a) Every word not found in a good English dictionary of the present day.

(b) Every word which, although found in a good English dictionary of the present day, is used in a sense differing from any meaning of the word given in such dictionary. (c) Every provincial pronunciation of a word, which is itself not a provincialism.

(d) Every provincial phrase or combination of words. (e) Every provincial name of an animal, vegetable, or other object.

II. To state where and when each recorded provincialism was heard in speech, or seen in writing; and to accept nothing at second-hand.

III. To state, if possible, the sex, occupation, birth-place, residence, and age of the person using each recorded provincialism.

IV. To give the meaning of each recorded provincialism, and to illustrate that meaning by embodying the word or phrase in a sentence, if possible the very sentence in which it was used by the speaker.

V. To give, in all cases requiring it, some well-known word with which the provincialism rhymes, so as to show its pronunciation.

VI. To avoid all attempts at derivation.

VII. To state of each provincialism whether it has been noted by Halliwell or Nares, or by Professor Wright in the English Dialect Dictionary.

VIII. To write each recorded provincialism on a separate sheet of paper, to write on one side of the paper only (leaving a margin on the left), and to sign and date each communication.

IX. To make each communication as short as possible, without sacrificing clearness to brevity.

X. To draw up the communications so as to correspond as nearly as possible with the following examples :—

"FLEECHES = large flakes (rhymes with 'breeches '). A servant girl, native of Prawle, South Devon, residing at Torquay, and about twenty-three years of age, stated in March, 1877, that the snow was 'falling in fleeches,' meaning in large flakes. She added that the small flakes were not fleeches. 19 March, 1877. X. Y."

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HALSE hazel (the 'al,' having the same sound as in Malice,' not as in 'False '). A labouring man, native of Ashburton, residing at Torquay, and about fifty-five years of age, said in my hearing that he had put ' a 'alse 'andle into his hammer,' meaning a 'hazel' handle. (See Halliwell, and Williams.) 19 March, 1877. X. Y."

They resolved also:

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1. That the Report of the Committee to be presented at the next Annual Meeting shall include all suitable communications received by the Secretary not later than the 1st of June next, and that all communications received, after that date shall be held over for another year.

2. That all meetings of the Committee shall be held in Exeter; that the Secretary shall convene them by separate notices to each member, posted not later than seven clear days before the dates of the meetings; and that two members shall be sufficient to form a quorum.

3. That a meeting of the Committee shall be held not later than the 21st of June next to receive and decide on a Report to be prepared and brought up by the Secretary.

In 1881, at the Dawlish meeting (Trans. XIII, p. 80), the Committee (of which Mr. F. T. Elworthy was then Hon. Secretary) thought it desirable to draw the attention of contributors to :

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1. Pronunciation. To note more carefully the difference in vowel sounds, as in "shall," "gate," "father," "wall"; and also in consonants, as smalldest" for smallest, "loav" for loaf, baily" and "plainty" for bailiff and plaintiff, “zull for self.

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2. Grammatical peculiarities. As plurals in " -en,' "shoe'en,' 66 tree'en," "housen." Genitives, as "the head o' un" for his head. Variations from literary English in the comparison of adjectives. Peculiarities in the use of pronouns, and in the conjugation of verbs.

CONTRIBUTIONS.

Each provincialism is placed within inverted commas, and the whole contribution ends with the initials of the observer. All remarks following the initials are Editorial.

The full address of each contributor is given below, and it must be understood that he or she only is responsible for the statements bearing his or her initials.

CONTRIBUTORS.

M. A.
R. B.

=

Maxwell Adams, 9 Pall Mall, London, S.W.

=Robert Burnard, Huccaby House, Prince

=

town.

R. P. C. =R. Pearse Chope, 107 Ledbury Road, Bayswater, W.

=

C. E. L. Miss C. E. Larter, 2 Summerland Terrace, St. Marychurch.

C. H. L. Charles H. Laycock, St. Michael's, Newton Abbot.

A. J. P. S.=A. J. P. Skinner, Colyton.

"AFTER THAT=all the same, nevertheless; qualifying a statement. 'Er's a cough-drop; after that, er's not a bad sort.' C. E. L."

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Very common phrase in the dialect for the literary "after all," even so." I went into the post office at a small village on Dartmoor last summer to buy some picture post cards, and the man said to me, “They be zab'm vor sexpence, but there idd'n zab'm differ'nt views there, arter that."

"ALLER the alder tree (alnus glutinosa).

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=

Black-aller the alder-buckthorn (rhamnus frangula). Both words are frequently met with as names for farms in Devonshire. C. H. L."

A. S. aler, alr; the "d" of literary English is euphonic.

"ALLER a boil, blackhead. 'Poor little maid, er've a-got a gurt aller on 'er leg, an' it dü punish 'er somethin' cruel.' C. H. L."

The word "allernbatch" occurs in the Exmoor Scolding, 1. 24. See also Halliwell.

Aм=are. A hedger, aged about sixty, at CombeMartin, on my announcing that I was going to walk to Mole's Chamber, exclaimed, 'You never am!

A woman, aged nearly seventy, at Combe - Martin, referring to some new-comers who passed whilst I was talking to her, said, 'I wonder who they am.' C. E. L.” "Am" is found in conjunction with each of the personal pronouns, except the second person singular, and is the regular unemphatic form of the present tense of the verb to be." The "a" is usually elided, and so it is heard as "I'm," "I'm," "we'm," " we'm," "yü'm,” they'm"; but when

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emphatic the "a" is sounded, as “yü am,” “they am also, when the pronoun and verb are separated by an adverb, as in the above example "yü never am."

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But the far more usual emphatic form is "be," as "Be 'e gwain 'ome? "Ees, I be."

"ANGRY=red, inflamed. Of a wound : 'he looks angry still.' C. E. L.

This is scarcely a provincialism; it is used by all classes, and is found with the above meaning in Nuttall's Standard English Dictionary.

Cf. Julius Cæsar, Act I, scene ii. "The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar's brow."

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BALM (pronounced bame, rhymes with dame)=medicine. 'That's a güde bame vor tha, to be out in the wet arter bein' in bed zo lung.' Thomas Gay, retired postman, Barnstaple, August, 1905. R. P. C."

This pronunciation is found in Old English.

"The other reisan is that hwo thet bere a deorewarthe licur, other a deorewarthe wete, as is bame, in a feble netles."-Ancren Riwle, p. 164.

"Ac by myddel ther hongeth her a costrel as thou might se,

Hwych ys ful of that bame cler: that precious ys and fre."-Sir Ferumbras, 1. 511.

It is spelt Bawme in Gerard's Herbal.

French, Baume.

"BEST WAY, BETTER-FIT=it would be better if. Best way vor yü to go an' ax'n yourzel if yü wants en.'

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Better-fit er was to bide 'ome, not go gaddin' about same's er dü.' C. H. L."

"BLUE BETSY the periwinkle. The schoolmaster at Berrynarbor told me the children always called the flower by this name. C. E. L.”

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The Rev. H, Friend, in his Devonshire Plant Names, gives Bluebell" and Blue-buttons as local names for the lesser periwinkle (vinca minor).

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"BLUE-BUTTONS the plant sheep's-bit (jasione montana). So called by boys at Manaton. C. H. L."

Friend gives this as a name for the periwinkle. Britten, in his English Plant Names, gives it for the devil's-bit

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