176 BULLETIN OF TUE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



was New England'« boast that she always had it right with- 

 out thinking of the matter. It is so no longer. Speaking 

 broadly, none of the young people say shall at all now. 

 They use will in all cases, and their speech is the speech 

 of the future. I hold the schools responsible for a thing 

 like that. They should not permit a pure usage to be 

 driven from one ofits stronarholds. 



I had a strong impression that this county, and particu- 

 larly the sea-board, had never been very thoroughly looked 

 up by collectors of "Americanisms," and that we should 

 soon have a fine feather in our caps in the shape of a long 

 list of uncollected words. I still hope so, if we can 

 awaken an interest ; although a hasty glance into the "Cen- 

 tury Dictionary " showed numbers of my words, but not 

 always treated in a satisfactory manner. The much-prized 

 dun fish, for instance, is there a Compound word : " dun'- 

 fish " and the " process of dunning" is mentioned. No such 

 verb is known in Gloucester, and we objectto the hyphen 

 and the accent for the noun. Guy of Warwick did not 

 kill the Dun'cow — he killecl the Dun Cow, and Glouc- 

 ester makes a dun fish. 



An objection to Worcester's and Webster's definition 

 oihülick is in the Collections. 1 I sent an abstract of it 

 to the Society, (with proper reference to the Collections.) 

 If I remember rightly, the Century definition wasnotmuch 

 better than the other, and to " come to killick " was men- 

 tioned as a current phrase. Itsounds like Governor Brad- 

 ford, or Christopher Wood. We of Essex County say, 

 " / threiv my killick over." 



A subject I should like to see investigated, and which 

 seemsto me connected with dialect, is the name Dogtown, 

 applied to a high, rolling common in the middle of Cape 

 Ann, which, (the Cape), was never settled except around 



i Vol. VII, page 36. 



