LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.24 (10) [E]

Tue Aug 24 21:20:46 UTC 2004

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * 24.AUG.2004 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
=======================================================================

From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.23 (01) [E]

Dear John Feather,

Subject: Language varieties

> John D: All is not lost. BBC Radio 7 has been broadcasting a large
selection
> of Marriott Edgar's monologues over the last week or so. If you're quick
you
> should be able to hear some of them on www.bbc.co.uk "Marriott's
Monologues"
> was broadcast at 9 am, 6.30 pm and 12.30 am starting on Aug 12. Programmes
> are available on the site for 7 days after first broadcast so hurry!

Thanks from me. I'll try to catch it.

> I have always thought that "The Lion and Albert" would be great sung to
the
> tune of Peter Sarstedt's "Where do you go to my lovely". I'd love to do it
> as a party piece but I can't play the guitar.

Well, Stanley Holloway only recited it - now I can't hear it any other way!

Yrs,
Mark

----------

From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.23 (01) [E]

Dear John Duckworth& Reinhard,

> Subject: Language Varieties

>   While thinking about the Lancashire dialect and looking through the two
> old
>   poems by Samuel Laycock I began thinking about the Modal Auxiliary Verb
>   _maun_.
> Could it be related to the Dutch verb "moeten", and the flemish equivalent
> "moet'n"
> V:ik moe(te) - je/gij moet - hij moet - wijder moet'n - gijder moet -
zijder
> moet'n
> V:Moeme/ Moewe =E Do we have to (must we)
> v:Moe'ze =E Do they have to (Must they)
> v: Moetie = E: Does he have to (Must he)

While still on the subject, I looked up the nearest reasonable facimile in
Afrikaans to the second of Woden's ravens, 'Munin' - 'Thought'? The first
was 'Hugin' - 'Memory'? (related to Afr. 'geheue' - 'memory, recollection'.
OE also used it "---Hige scael se heardre, heorte se cenre, the ure magen
lytleth. [The Battle of Maldon]"

'Maan' - 'warn, urge, dun (for money); 'Aanmaning' - 'warning, exhortation';
'vermaan' - 'admonish, caution, lecture, expostulate'.

I can't imagine how this will lead to the Southern English 'must', like MHG
'musst' & Afr 'moet'.

Yrs,
Mark

----------

From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.22 (08) [E]

Dear Kevin,

Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.22 (01) [E]

> You can get a 1611 KJV reprint for about $25 US.  I have one published by
> Thomas Nelson in 1993.  The one I can find on-line right now (at the
> Christian Book Distributors website) is from Hendrickson Publishers, ISBN
> 1565631609.  They are facsimiles, with the original spellings, including
"u"
> for "v" and "v" for "u".

Thanks for the hint.

Yrs,
Mark

----------

From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.24 (04) [E]

Dan wheag:

That reply was some feat of endurance on your part!

You write (in reply to Henno Brandsma):
"The Island North Frisians appear to have settled on the islands between 700
and 800 AD coming from East Frisia. What we know is that the islands had
been abandoned for the duration of about 150 years."

That begs the question: what language group(s) lived on the north Frisian
islands before their abandonment and repopulation by the north Frisians? The
Danes?

Gwra'massi, ow soce,

Críostóir.

----------

From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.23 (07) [E]

Dear Sandy,

Subject: Language Varieties.

May I differ with you, there? on the basis of pure ignorance, I assure you.
It seems to me that the Northern English dialects conjugate & decline
consistently with the forms of Late Old English & Early Middle English,
whereas the Quaker usage is political, & involves simply direct
transposition of 'you' with 'thee'. (My great-aunt Cato married into the
English Clark's, a Quaker family.)

Am I alone in feeling that 'RP English' would be much the better for the
seat of British government having been in Newcastle or Edinburgh?
Yrs,
Mark

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Language varieties" [E]

> From: Bill Wigham <redbilly2 at earthlink.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.22 (06) [E]
>
> Sandy & al:
>       They ain't too many New Englanders that get too Finnish about their
> draggin' out the
> a sound of vowels.  You go to Maine and and listen to the lobsta men talk
> about wimmin,
> Taxis and the gummint and y'r likely to hear most anything.  They drag out
> theya vowels
> fer emphasis...as if the other guy was deef.

Why would that be an appropriate way to talk to a deaf person?

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Language Varieties

Good Afternoon, Lowlanders!

Ron was speaking about the soap opera _Coronation Street_ the other day;
last night I was free while the programme was on and watched some of it.I
heard an expression that I hadn't heard for years:

_She couldn't stop a pig in a ginnel!_. This refers to someone with
bow-legs. _A ginnel_ is a narrow alleyway between houses, and the
implication is that the poor woman's legs are so deformed that the pig can
run under her!

I already mentioned the saying _wheer there's muck there's brass_ (where
ther's dirt there's money / wealth).

_There's nowt as queer as fowk_ (there's nothing as queer / strange as
people) is of course very well known in the north of England generally; it
also became the name of a Channel 4 gay soap.

A favourite expression of my great-aunt was: _Ah cud eight a scabby donkey!_
(I could eat a scabby donkey!) Describing extreme hunger. Another version of
this is: _Ah cud eight a buttered frog!_ (Presumably because scabby donkeys
have become rather hard to come across!)

My grandfather and father used to say: _pu' th'wood in th'oyle!_ or _pu'
'wood in th'oyle!_ (put the wood in the hole!) which meant simply 'close the
door!'

_She's standin' theer like one o' Burton's dummies_ (She is standing there
like one of Burton's dummies.) This means that she is useless, and just
stands there doing nothing. Burtons for those not in the know is a clothes'
shop.

_'is a face like a line o' wet washin'. _ (He has a face like a line of wet
washing.) He is looking miserable.

_what's tha pullin' thi face fer?_ ('What are you pulling your face for?)
Why are you looking so miserable?

_Tha makes a better dooar than a winda! _ (You make a better door than a
window!) You are in my way, I can't see.

When I used to ask my maternal grandmother, 'Who is there?' or 'Who is
that?' She would often reply, 'Icky 'firebobby!' (Icky the fireman!)

 A _bobby_ of course was a policeman; a _firebobby_ was a fireman; the
_ashtinmen_ were the dustmen (an _ashtin_ was a dustbin).

If I asked my grandmother what she had in her hand, or what was in a bag she
had just brought, she would reply, _layors for meddlers_. I have no idea at
all what _layors_ are, but _meddlers_ is of souse 'people who interfere.'

A person, a child or a wife particularly, who pestered someone about
something, or nagged that person, was accused of _moyderin'_ him. This was
the Preston pronunciation of the word; in the Manchester area the word is
_maytherin'_ , with a voiced _th_ as in _there_.

_'Is standin' theer like cheese a' fourpence_ : was a favorite of my
father's. It meant standing about aimlessly, of no use to anybody. I suppose
fourpence was once very expensive for cheese, and no-one would have bought
it at that price.

_Mi belly thinks mi thrroat's bin cut!_ (My belly thinks my throat's been
cut!) Means: 'I am very hungry.'

A common expression to describe a very rare occurrence was to say  _wunce
ev'ry Preston Guild._ I have heard this expression on Coronation Street too,
which suggests that it was not restricted to Preston. Preston Guild was, and
is, a big festival celebrated every 20 years.

One expression to call someone a fool was to say: _tha pace-egg_ . A Pace
Egg (from Pascha = Easter ? Or maybe just from _peace_) were painted eggs
that children traditionally rolled down hills at Easter.There was another
egg-word with the same meaning, but that eludes me.

My great grandmother used to call a jumper or a jersey a _gansy_ [ganzi],
which originates in the name of the other Channel Isle, Guernsey.

A little bit of skin sticking out from the side of the nail, something that
could be quite painful, was _ a stepmother jag_.

My father had a rather vulgar expression for someone who couldn't sit still:
_tha's like a fart in a cullinder_ .

John Duckworth
Preston, UK

----------

From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language Varieties

Mark wrote in response to my comments on the etymology of "o'clock" and "a
clock" in the First Folio of Shaxpaw:

>Well, no. Not presumably, but definitely the _a-_ we find in 'asleep',
'ajar, abate, & for that matter 'allow' & all the rest goes back to the Old
English, with the prefix _ge-_, & as with other cases where it preceded a
high front vowel, drifted to _y-_, or the glottal stop _'-_, . leaving the
prefix _a_, without a hyphen."

Well, no, not definitely, in fact not at all: "a-" in "abate" and "allow" is
ultimately from Latin "ad". Lexicographers are sure that English "a-" is a
reduction of "an" or "on". Apart from the fact that the "a-" has to precede
a consonant, not a vowel, neither Chambers Dictionary nor Onions gives "a-"
as a reduced form of "ge-" or its later form "y-". This does not mean that
it never arises in this way.

I didn't mean to imply that Shickspure actually wrote "a Clocke". Rather,
the First Folio attests a form of the phrase current in 1623, much earlier
than the date I found cited for "of the clock" (1647). The OED attests "a
clocke" from 1480.

Mark also wrote:
"But "o'clock" is ., as shown by the apostrophe, a contraction of  "of the
clock"."

"O'clock" is simply a spelling introduced in 1720. The apostrophe only tells
us that the phrase is being _represented_ as derived from "of (the) clock".
A lot of well-established phrases previously written with "a" and no
apostrophe were "restored" in this way at about this time. We can very
reasonably assume that "o'clock" is a learn-ed version of  "a clock" rather
than a cut down version of the "of the clock" attested in 1647, which is
probably best seen as another attempt by a nob to write proper and set
himself apart from hoi polloi who have been saying "a clock" since 1480 at
least.

But why were they saying "a clock"? The OED says that all the expressions of
particular times using the word "clock" derive from "of the clock" (or some
variant spelling thereof). Ignoring different spellings of "clock" it cites
"of clock", "a clock", "o'clock", "at the clock" and "clock". The last two
are very rare. The examples cited for "X clock" have X = 2 and X = 3 so we
might guess they are phonetic representations of "X a clock" where schwa has
been merged with the vowel. It almost disappears after a vowel in Modern
London Demotic: "turr [2] clock". "At the clock" is of interest, however.

Let's consider how "of the clock" came into existence (Chaucer, 1386) and
developed. "Clock" had come into the language in about 1370. How did
everyone tell the time for the next 16 years? Was it "of the clock" from the
start or did they use various expressions? Did everybody adopt "of the
clock" in 1386, find it was a mouthful and switch to the shorter form "a
clock"? Assuming that there wasn't much talk about clock time for a while
and "a clock" was the first expression many people heard we have to wonder
how they interpreted it. Did they assimilate it to the familiar pattern of
"a-" ("on the clock" wouldn't have been unreasonable as the sense) or did
they think this funny foreign machine with its funny foreign name was being
referred to in French - "a[accent grave] clock". Is it impossible that
Chaucer wrote "on the clock" and it was either misprinted as "of" or set as
"of" by a printer who interpreted "on" as the dialect form of "of"?

We are conditioned by "o'clock" and some expansions to "of the clock" which
have occurred since 1720 to believe that the latter is the form from which
(and from which alone) "schwa clock" - the predominant form for over 500
years - was derived. Other sources seem possible, so how can we be sure that
"a clock" _must_ represent "of the clock"?

Mark also wrote:
"Bear in mind the _ge-_ (OE) & _a-_ (ME) modify a verb, as their cognates on
the Continent & in Afrikaans still do. All the examples you & I quoted are
verbs. 'Clock' is a noun."

Well, yes and no, mainly no. Germanic "ge-" has a number of meanings: one
represents a collective aspect as in German "Gebirge", "Gebrueder",
"Geschwister" and (I guess) in Du "geheel", "getijde". In connexion with
verbs and nouns derived from verbs it signifies a completed action, hence
its use in past participles. But that's another story. More pertinently we
have E "abed", "abreast", "abroad", "ajar" so the idea that "a-" cannot be
combined with a noun is false.

Sorry to take up so much space but it is obviously important to strive for
precision of expression. The question of what faith we should have in
etymological dictionaries is an important one. They are out best defence
against wild and misleading assumptions about relationships between words
but we need to understand their limitations.

John Feather
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

----------

From: Pat Reynolds <pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.08.23 (07) [E]

>Críostóir wrote:
>
>"John Duckworth cited D H Lawrence identifying Nottingham usage of _mun_
for
>_should_. I had never heard or read of this usage until it was debated
here,
>so it must be (sadly) long extinct in Nottinghamshire today, unless it
>persists to the the north and east of the county, where Yorkshire forms
>begin. Nottingham English speakers today would say _ah shud_ for _I
>should_".
>

I hear _shud_ in Nottingham - and throughout the shire, too.  _Mun_ I
heard in my childhood, part of which was spent in the Dukeries (long
explanation cut short - big country parks sitting on top of a lot of
coal in the north of the county).  _Mun_ was a form used by old men
(i.e. people born in the 1880s - 1900s?).  Odd that I remember it as a
gendered usage - perhaps women were more adapt at using more standard
forms such as _shud_ around us children (who had a more southerly East
Midlands accent).

Following up on a different thread, about use of Scots in literature and
other places: if folks have never read the Black Country Bugle, I do
recommend it - this is a weekly newspaper written in dialect.  The
cartoon characters aynock and aylie (enoch and eli) are just about
intelligible to me (my husband, Bradford-born, but of a West Midlands
family translates).

Ah, well, ah mun get a wriggle on un reed wat mister Johnson as't say
abat yon 'New Postmedieval Archaeology'. (I hope that's right - it is
what I can hear in my head!)

Pat
--
Pat Reynolds
pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk
   "It might look a bit messy now,
                    but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Pratchett)

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================