124 



Wiltshire Words. 



of description and detail. One instance will suffice; written English 

 speaks of fck 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 European 

 . I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us is 

 fuller of metaphor aud 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, 

 Peter Mackenzie.) Such "die-sinkers" were the old man and 

 woman, both over eighty years of age, from whom many of the 

 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 o, 

 going to law when the court's in hell ? " " What be yon a lookin* 

 vor ? lookin' for last year's snow ? " (said pettishly to an old woman 



