124 Wiltshire Words. 
of description and detail. One instance will suffice; written English 
speaks of “a flail,” but the “flail” is merely part of an instrument 
which is called a “ dreshol,” and which has names for its separate 
parts. Your writer on country subjects, who has never been out of 
Fleet Street, will tell you that the “rustic ” uses only four hundred 
words, while he—Pennialinus—who never uses one word where six 
will do, can use nearly the above-named number in stating that fact. 
Again, the swarming of bees is named with great exactness; of 
“swarms” only the first is a ‘‘ swarm,” the second being a “smart ” 
and the third a “ chit.” ‘ 
A character in one of Disraeli’s fashionable novels says :— 
“The English language consists of three words, ‘nice,’ ‘jolly,’ and ‘smart,’ — 
to which some grammarians add ‘ fond.’ ” 
The ideas of the satirised persons were no doubt equally few. 
I have spoken of the raciness of vocabulary ; let me end by & 
illustrating raciness of phrase which might be added to the pages — 
of the Glossary. Again a quotation from the Biglow Papers will 
serve as an introduction to some racy sayings and proverbial phrases. 
** Prosaic as American life seems in many of its aspects to an Huropean 
I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us is 
fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images, than that of any 
other people I have seen . . . Almost every county has some good die-sinker — 
in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the whole neighbourhood.” _ 
(Many popular preachers have such mother-wit, for example, 
> were the old man and | 
woman, both over eighty years of age, from whom many of the — 
Peter Mackenzie.) Such “ die-sinkers’ 
following expressions came. Although they may not have “ passed | 
into currency,” still there is a noticeable alertness and spirit, and 
they are the stuff out of which a national language grows!:— | 
‘“‘Her’d lie abed till her wur vinny” (one old woman of another — 
given to shamming). “A would skin a vlint vur a varden, and 
spwile a tenpenny nayl in doin on’t.” ‘ More store, more stink.” 
“A lie’s a lie, though the king tell it.” ‘“ What’s the good 0; 
going to law when the court’s in hell?” ‘* What be you a lookin’ 
vor ? lookin’ for last year’s snow ?” (said pettishly to an old woman : 
