*2<'U Contribution* totoards a Wiltshire Glossary. 



it progresses to contain a certain number of words which we our- 

 selves have not as yet met with, or which for some reason or other 

 we have omitted to include, and we have also passed over a good 

 many which appear in the earlier Glossaries, as being in general 

 use or merely local pronunciations of ordinary English. 



Mr. Slow's works may be consulted as giving a large number of 

 the latter, which it appeared to us to be undesirable to repeat, 

 except in the few cases where some special interest seemed to attach 

 to the word, either from its oddity or from the manner in which it 

 might serve to illustrate some law of language or local survival of 

 an obsolete form. Two or three examples, for instance, are quite 

 sufficient to illustrate the substitution of v for /, as in avore, or of a 

 for o, as in cam, while mint for mite is noticeable as preserving the 

 original form of the word, long disused in ordinary speech. 



"With these exceptions, however, we may, perhaps, be accused of 

 having shown too great a tendency towards the side of mercy, 

 rather than that of severity, in deciding what to include and what 

 to reject. "Were the line drawn too sharply, much that is of 

 interest from a strictly philological point of view might possibly 

 be passed by, as being otherwise of little or no value. It is perhaps 

 as well, therefore, in dealing with such matters to bear in mind the 

 old Wiltshire story of the man who, when he went hedging, made 

 it his rule to cut his stakes rather longer than at first glance seemed 

 necessary, " bekase anybody cou'd cut 'em sharter if a' wanted to, 

 but a' cou'dn't make um no longer if they was cut too shart." 



Our work may probably now claim to represent very fully and 

 fairly the peculiar characteristics and range of our Wiltshire folk- 

 speech, so far as may be done within the limits which have of necessity 

 been imposed upon us from the outset. The raw materials have 

 been collected and put roughly into shape, and it now rests with 

 the trained philologist to select and arrange from a scientific point 

 of view, and so to give permanent form and value to them. 



No doubt there are still many Wiltshire expressions that have 

 so far escaped our researches, and we shall be very glad to be 

 informed of any such that may be known to our readers, so as to 

 render the Glossary as complete as possible. 



