173 



IV. — Appendix to a List of Obsolescent Words and Local Phrases in 

 use among the folk of East Cornwall. — Bij Thomas Q. Couch. 



SINCE the publication of my Glossary of East Cornwall words 

 in our Journal,'^ I have collected others in sufficient number to 

 warrant my offering them as an Appendix. 



I have altered the title of my collection in compliance with 

 some criticism on its inapplicability. I could, I believe, defend 

 my use of the word obsolete (ab obsoleo ; grown out of use, old 

 fashioned) as indicating phrases not dead, but simply antiquated. 

 The word obsolescent is a fair compromise. My main incentive in 

 the gathering and publishing of this list and its accompanying 

 notes, was to show how many good Avords have slipped out of use 

 in modern Book-English, though indelibly fixed in some of the 

 master-pieces of our earlier English literature, and living still in 

 the colloquial talk of our peasantry. By a strange misconception, 

 I am supposed to claim these words as exclusively of local use, 

 whereas, in my prefatory notes and subsequent illustrations, I have 

 shown that their chief value consists in their width of distribution. 

 For want of many of these ivords we can now only express the ideas 

 by tedious periphrasis. It is to me inexplicable how such apt ex- 

 ponents of thoughts could have thus fallen into desuetude, except 

 in the vulgar tongue. 



A. 



Agate. Descriptive of earnest attention. 

 Apsen tree. The aspen, Popidus tremula. 



B. 



Balch. a stout cord used for the the head-line of a fishing-net. 

 Bean. A withy band^ 

 Black-head. A boil or furuncle. 

 Blackworm. The cockroach. 



* No. I, March, 1864. 



