LL-L: "Ethnonyms" LOWLANDS-L, 25.OCT.1999 (01) [E/LS]

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From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
Subject: Ethnonyms

Sandy wrote (quoting me:)
>> The Oxford "Atlas of English Dialects" gives "didicoy" as the West
Country
>> term for what in the rest of England is generally called a  "gypsy" <<

>The OAED isn't a dictionary, though - I wouldn't go turning to it for
precise definitions (having said that I should point out I haven't actually
managed to get a look at it!).<

The OAED (1996) is based on "Word Maps", an earlier (published 1987)
interpretation of the Survey of English Dialects. I don't think that
definition is the point. The approach of the Survey (as I understand it) is
to ask a question of the form "What do you call ..." In this case the
question which receives the reply "gypsy" or "gyppo" from the majority of
respondents throughout England is generally answered "didikoy" (or "dickoy",
"diddok", "diddikite", "diddy") in the South-West.

>The definition I gave was how it was explained to me by a (non-itinerant,
non-Romani) Devon man. The Oxford English Dictionary entry is interesting -
it says the word comes from Romani itself and means "our people". However,
the sequence of quotes in the dictionary seems to suggest the use of it just
to mean "gypsy" in C18 until the final quote (1966) actually makes an
explicit distinction between didicoys "such as the Irish tinkers around
London" and "the true Romani". So I think my informant may have simply been
giving the modern usage.<

>> The "Atlas" shows "butty" (workmate) outcropping in three smallish
>> South-Western areas within a sea of "mate".<<

>The OED isn't very helpful with "butty" - it only lists the original
specialist use as a mining or engineering middleman. Wright's ... Dictionary
of English Dialects (early C20) lists it as meaning either a "fellow worker"
or an "intimate friend". My experience of the word is that while if you used
it in the plural, especially outside of work, it would be taken to mean
"workmates", but in the singular, especially in work, it would mean
"intimate friend amongst workmates". For example, I remember hesitating to
mention personal matter to a young girl in work in south east Wales because
of another girl within earshot. She said, "You can tell Julie, she's my
butty." <

>I'm a bit surprised by there only being three outcroppings in the West
Country - there must be an area in south Wales too, ....  I'd be interested
to know what the question was that brought forth the geographical
information about "butty". If it simply
asked what the word for "someone you work with" was, then the results would
be seriously narrowed, because "butty" doesn't quite mean that!<

The AOED says: "The Survey of English Dialects collected information on
words used for three closely linked areas of social connection outside the
family, those denoting a working association (WORKMATE), close leisure-time
friendship (PAL), and looser familiarity (FRIEND). ...words used in these
semantic fields are to a large extent interrelated, and BUTTY, MATE and PAL
are used to indicate all three relationships." But it contains only the
WORKMATE map. Three outcroppings is correct: the map covers only England and
Monmouthshire. One of the "BUTTY" areas clearly extends from England through
Monmouthshire into Wales.

It occurs to me that to understand the use of "butty" by the young Welsh
woman it might be necessary to know about the social relations of women at
work. I have the impression that women who work on production lines, for
example, often talk very intimately to each other (especially about their
men!). In that case a "butty" need mean no more than a member of the same
work group, which is what it seems to mean among men in the mining industry.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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