SOME HOLDERNESS DIALECT FIGHTING WORDS. 275 



To give anyone a Slatin' has nothing whatever to do with 

 slates. It is a Northman's word meaning to slap, to 

 dab, &c, and is cousin germane to a good Blowing-up. 



A Slipe is a sharp, gliding blow with the open hand ; as, 

 ' ' Jack gat sike a slipe ower gob, his lips was all brussen." 



A Sloonge is a heavy, sweeping blow given sideways with the 

 open hand, in which the whole arm participates. A 

 " sloonge ower side o' heead " is something to be going 

 on with. 



To Slug is to beat with any instrument, including the hands. 

 When one boy says to another, " Let's slug Tom 

 Smithers ; he put saut uppa slitherin'-spot," poor Tom 

 has a bad time in store for him. Slog is another word of 

 similar import, and the word is sometimes indulged in. 



Snape is a peculiar word meaning to check, to restrain. The 

 Norseman used this word, meaning to disgrace, to hold 

 back. A forward child needs "snaping." There is 

 something of " Thou shalt not " about it. 



The word Sooal brings up visions of the maternal slipper, the 

 sharp application of which made sitting-down, for a 

 time, a pain rather than a pleasure. A word nearly like 

 Sooal is Sowle, meaning to chastise, and is used \>y 

 Shakespeare in "Coriolanus " (Act iv. , sc. 5): " He'll go," 

 he says, "and sowle the porter of Rome gates by the 

 ears." 



A curious combatative word is Sneezer, which, of course, is 

 nasal in its application. As a rule, a sneezer is a settler, 

 of the superlative degree, an ultimatum and coup de 

 grace rolled into one. It "taps one's claret," and is 

 gory in its nature and essence. 



One might think that the word Suff is a contraction of the 

 word sufficie7it. Well, that is its meaning exactly, for 

 when you have received a knock hard enough to make 

 you draw your breath suddenly, as though from a spasm 

 of pain, you have had sufficient for one day at least. 

 The word, however, is the dialect pronunciation for 

 sough, the sound made by wind, and is given because it 

 has that effect. 



A Switch is a thin, pliant rod, the shoot of willow, or haw- 

 thorn, or dog-rose. Boys use them, stripped of their 

 leaves, to play at switch-egg. The application of these 

 switches to the stockinged legs of fellow-youngsters is 

 termed Switchin', and is a highly-prized form of torture. 



