Our difficulty in understanding the vernacular of a dialect-speaker arises in great measure from the fact that many of the sounds being unfamiliar to us, we cannot tell which syllable belongs to which word, and so we cannot rightly divide up the sentence into its component parts. This would of course be much more easily done if we could at once write down on paper what we have heard, and then stake it off in sections, like the cryptic word which the Kentish woman wrote to the village schoolmaster, to explain the absence of her boy from school: keptatometugoataturin, which became quite clear when divided up thus: kept-at-ome-tu-go-a-taturin, that is, kept at home to go a-harvesting-potatoes. For instance, what sounds like oogerum (Yks.) stands for a whole sentence: hug her them, that is, carry them for her. The sentence always quoted as the classic puzzle of this type is: ezonionye-onionye, which being interpreted means: have any of you any on you? Another catch specimen of Yorkshire dialect is t’weet maks’m pike’m, the wet makes them pick themselves, used of fowls cleaning themselves after rain. Then further, many of the commonest words have by the unhindered action of the laws of living speech become so worn down, that we hardly recognize them in this their dialect form, though we are using them every day ourselves in the standard language. Take for example such a sentence as: I shall have it in the morning, which has been pared down to: as-et-it-morn (Yks.). Our forefathers a thousand years ago would have said: Ic sceal hit habban on Ð?m morgne, every single word of which remains firm and intelligible in its skeleton shape of: as [I shall]-et [have it]-it [in the]-morn. Add to this an enormous vocabulary of words non-existent in literary English, it is no wonder if sometimes the accents of a country rustic sound in our ears like an unknown tongue. A story is told of a Yorkshireman who went into a store of general wares in London and asked: What diz ta keep here? Ans. Oh, everything. Yorkshireman: Ah deean’t think thoo diz. Hesta onny coo-tah nobs [pieces of wood that secure the tie for the legs of cows when being milked]?—a question which reduced the cockney salesman to a state of helpless amazement.

But to illustrate more fully what has been stated above, I will here give some specimens culled promiscuously from various dialects: cost dibble tates? (Chs.), can you set potatoes; hoore’s his heeaf-hod? (n.Yks.), where is his home?; hod thi clack (e.Yks.), be silent; till the want-snap (Som.), set the mole-trap; t’deear beeals oot on t’jimmer (Yks.), the door creaks on the hinge; us lads wur shollin’ doon a stie (n.Yks.), we boys were sliding down a ladder; what have you got there? Ans. Nobbut a whiskettle o’ wick snigs (Chs.), only a basketful of live eels; t’titter oop t’sprunt mun ower a bit (n.Yks.), the one soonest up the hill must wait awhile; thoo mun think ma on ti remmon it (Yks.), you must remind me to remove it; tak the sharevil an’ the kipe, an’ goo an’ get up some o’ them frum tatoes out o’ the slang (Shr.), take the garden fork and the wicker measure, and go and get up some of those early potatoes out of the narrow strip of ground; whot ail’th’n? Aw, they zeth he’th got a pinswill in ’is niddick (Dev.), a boil on the back of his neck; gan through the yet, an swin the field wi’the beass in’t (Nhb.), go through the gate and traverse diagonally the field with the cattle in it; you needna be afeard o’ gweÏn through the leasow, they’n mogged the cow as ’iled poor owd Betty Mathus (Shr.), you need not be afraid of going through the meadow, they have moved to another pasture the cow that gored poor old Betty Matthews; they war fearful fain to pike amang t’shrogs some shoups, bummelkites, and hindberries (w.Yks.), they were very glad to glean among the bushes some dog-rose hips, blackberries, and wild raspberries; an’ the leet windle ne’er blubbereth or weeneth, but look’th pithest and sif’th (Dev.), and the little delicate child never cries or whimpers, but looks piteous and sighs; ae’s pinikin, palchy, an’ totelin, ae’s clicky an’ cloppy, an’ a kiddles an’ quaddles oal day (Cor.), he is ailing, delicate, and imbecile from old age, he is left-handed and lame, and he potters about and grumbles all day; shoe maddles an taums ower in a sweb (w.Yks.), she talks incoherently, and from weakness falls down in a swoon; she shruk so wonnerful that I fared hully stammed (Ess.), she shrieked so strangely, that I was wholly overcome with amazement; it’s a soamy neet, ah’s ommast mafted (Yks.), it’s an oppressive night, I am almost overpowered by the great heat; when t’ bent’s snod, hask, cranchin an’ slaap, it’s a strang sign of a pash (w.Yks.), when the coarse moorland grass is smooth, brittle, crackling under the foot and slippery, it’s a strong sign of a sudden downpour of rain; it snew, an’ it stoured, an’ it warn’t while efter dark at ah wossel’d thruff an’ wan yamm (n.Yks.), it snowed, and the wind was driving the snow in gusts, and it was not till after dark that I had battled through and reached home; does it ever rain here? Ans. Why, it donks an’ dozzles an’ does, an’ sumtimes gi’s a bit of a snifter, but it never cums iv any girt pell (Cum.), it drizzles and rains slightly, and is misty, and sometimes there is a slight shower, but it never comes with any great downpour of rain; a cam doon wee a dousht an’ a pardoos, an sair did it rackle up ma banes, it wiz nae jeesty job (Bnff.), I fell with a sudden fall, striking the ground with great violence, and sorely did it shake my bones, it was no jesting matter; hee’s waxen a gay leathe-wake, fendible, whelkin, haspenald-tike (Yks.), he has grown a fine supple, hard-working, big, youth; I is to gie notidge at Joanie Pickergill yeats yown t’neet, t’moorn at moorn, an’ t’moorn at neet, an’ neea langer as lang’s storm hods, cause he c’n get na mair eldin (n.Yks.), I am to give notice that J. P. heats his oven to-night, and to-morrow, morning and night, and no longer as long as the snow lasts, because he can get no more fuel; tendar! tendar! [guard] stop the injun, left ma boondle on the planchen [platform] (Cor.). An old man having an order for some gravel was asked whether it was ready. He replied: Naw, Sur, but we’ve a got un in coose, we must buck [break] et, an’ cob [bruise into small pieces] et, an’ spal [break into yet smaller pieces] et, an’ griddle [riddle] et twice, an’ then et’ll be fitty (Cor.). A Cornish girl applying for a housemaid’s situation was asked: What can you do? Ans. I can louster and fouster, but I caan’t tiddly; I can do the heavy work, and work hard at it, but I can’t do the lighter housework. Sometimes a request for an interpretation of mysterious words only draws forth more of the same nature, for instance: Mester, that back kitchen’s welly snying [swarming] wi’ twitch-clogs. What do you mean by twitch-clogs, Mary? Whoi, black-jacks (Chs.). But ‘Mester’ was still in blissful ignorance of the presence of black-beetles in his back kitchen. The following conversation is reported from Somersetshire: I wish you would tell me where you get your rennet. Why, I buys a vell and zalts’n in. A vell! whatever is that? Don’ee know hot a vell is? Why a pook, be sure! Dear me, I never heard of that either; what can it be? Zome vokes call’n a mugget. I really cannot understand you. Lor, mum! wherever was you a-brought up to? Well, to be sure! I s’pose you’ve a-zeed a calve by your time? Of course I know that. Well then, th’ urnet’s a-tookt out of the vell o’ un. Some one who had never heard the word gouty as used in Cheshire to mean wet, spongy, boggy, asked: What is a gouty place? Ans. A wobby place. What’s a wobby place? A mizzick. What’s a mizzick? A murgin. A judge at the Exeter assizes asked a witness: What did you see? Witness: A did’n zee nort vur the pillem. Judge: What’s pillem? Witness: Not knaw what’s pillem? Why, pillem be mux a-drowed. Judge: Mux! What’s mux? Witness: Why mux be pillem a-wat [mud is wet dust]. An assault case came before a magistrate in a Yorkshire Police Court. Magistrate—to plaintiff: Well, my good woman, what did she do? Plaintiff: Deeah? Why, sha clooted mi heead, rove mi cap, lugged mi hair, dhragged ma doon, an’ buncht ma when ah was doon. Magistrate—to clerk: What did she say? Clerk (slowly and decisively): She says the defendant clooted her heead, rove her cap, lugged her hair, dhragged her doon, an’ buncht her when sha was doon. Sometimes the inability to comprehend is on the side of the country rustic. At a school in Wensleydale a South-country inspector, examining a class on the Bible, said: Neow tell me something abeout Mouses. Cats kill ’em, was the prompt rejoinder. A lady reading Exodus ix. 3, ‘There shall be a very grievous murrain,’ to a Sunday School class of Cornish children, was puzzled by the seemingly irrelevant comment made by one of her scholars: Ants is awful things, aint ’em? Afterwards she discovered that an ant in Cornwall is called a muryan. A similar story comes from Sussex. A lady who had been giving a lesson on Pharaoh’s dreams was startled to find that all the boys supposed that the fat and lean kine were weasels. In Surrey, Kent, and Sussex a weasel is called a kine, or keen. An old labourer reading the Book of Genesis came to this verse: ‘And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die’ (chap. xlv. 28). There’s a hatch zomewhere in this story, vor however could wold Jacob zee hes zon Joseph if hee’d ben yet alive? If he’d ben yet up alive, or dead, how could there be any of ’en left vor his father to zee? That’s what I wants to know (I.W.). It must have been a more highly educated person who understood the coroner’s question: Did you take any steps to resuscitate the deceased? Ans. Yes, sor, we riped [rifled] ’ees pockets (Nhb.). An old woman once asked a neighbour the meaning of the word Jubilee. Ans. Why, ’tes like this, if yiew an’ yieur auld man ’ave ben marrid fifty years, ’tes a Golden Wedden’, but if the Lord ’ave took un, ’tes a Jewbilee. A local preacher expounding the Bible to a rural congregation in North Yorkshire told his hearers that the ‘ram caught in a thicket’, Genesis xxii. 13, meant: an aud teeap cowt iv a brier.

The quaintly-worded command, Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai (Chs.), has more significance than meets the eye of those who read it now, for it records a faint echo from the times of that ancient institution once common to every village, but now obsolete, namely, the Dame’s School, the theme of Shenstone’s poem, The School-Mistress (1742), wherein he sought to imitate the ‘peculiar tenderness of sentiment remarkable throughout’ the works of Spenser:

The ‘Ye mun begin an’ aikle nai’ [you must begin and get dressed for going now] was the signal given by an old dame who kept a school near Wrenbury to her ‘little bench of heedless bishops’ that lessons were over for the day.

Shenstone’s old dame kept a ‘birchen tree’ from which she cut her ‘scepter’; he does not mention the other weapon of torture wielded by these female tyrants, which was the thimble. The poor children were rapped on the head with a thimbled finger, and the operation was known as thimble-pie making. The old dame that I remember, who must have been one of the last of all her race, was of milder mood than these. Her name was Mrs. Price, and she dwelt in a remote and picturesque corner of Herefordshire called Tedstone Delamere. I cannot call it a village, or even a hamlet, for the houses were so very few and far between. Mrs. Price’s scholars were mere baby creatures, old enough to run about and get into mischief, or court danger, and yet too young to be sent to the parish school with their bigger brothers and sisters. So busy mothers were glad to pay a trifling sum to have these little ones tended by a motherly old widow-woman for a few hours every morning. But the time came when age and infirmity debarred her from even this light task, and her cottage no longer resounded with those noises which ‘Do learning’s little tenement betray’. I found her one day sitting all alone with an open Bible on the table beside her, and her spectacles lying idle in her lap. She looked tired and dispirited, and said her eyes were so bad that she had been obliged to stop reading, and sit doing nothing. Naturally I offered to read aloud to her awhile, and I inquired what had been engaging her attention. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘I’d just got to where the frogs came up upon Pharaoh.’ I took the book, and read on and on, for each time I came to ‘the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart’, the aged Mrs. Price evinced such satisfaction over the prospect of yet another Plague, that I had not the heart to cut a long story short. At last when Pharaoh had finally bidden the Israelites ‘be gone’, I closed the Bible, and as I did so, the old lady exclaimed, ‘Ain’t that nice readin’!’ One would not have thought that the history of the seven Plagues of Egypt was exactly the portion of Scripture best fitted to cheer and comfort a lone and feeble old woman. Perhaps it stirred old fires in her blood, rekindling memories of the days when children deemed her ‘the greatest wight on ground’, when she held the reins of power, distributing rewards and punishments as the honoured head of a Dame’s School.