The Englishing of French Words; the Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems Part 3

_E.D.D._, among many meanings of #lag#, explains this as a Suss.e.x and Somerset term for 'a long marshy meadow usually by the side of a stream'. Since the word seems as if it might be used for anything somewhere, we cannot question its t.i.tle to these meadows, but we doubt its power to retain possession, except in some favoured locality.

9. 'And chancing lights on willowy waterbreaks'. (22)

We have to guess what a _waterbreak_ is, having found no other example of the word.

10. 'Of hobby-horses with their starting eyes'. (23)

#Hobby-horse# as a local or rustic name for dragon-fly can have no right to general acceptance.

11. 'Stolchy ploughlands hid in grief.' (24)

#Stolchy# is so good a word that it does not need a dictionary.

Wright gives only the verb _stolch_ 'to tread down, trample, to walk in the dirt'. The adjective is therefore primarily applicable to wet land that has become sodden and miry by being _poached_ by cattle, and then to any ground in a similar condition. Since _poach_ is a somewhat confused h.o.m.ophone, its adjective _poachy_ has no chance against _stolchy_.

12. 'I whirry through the dark'. (24)

#Whirry# is another word that explains itself, and perhaps the more readily for its confusion (in this sense) with _worry_, see _E.D.D._ where it is given as adjective and verb, the latter used by Scott in 'Midlothian'. 'Her and the gude-man will be whirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank.' In the _Century Dictionary_, with its p.r.o.nunciation hwer'i, it is described as dialectal form of _whirr_ or of _hurry_, to fly rapidly with noise, also transitive to hurry.

13. 'No hedger brished nor scythesman swung'. (25)

and

'The morning hedger with his bris.h.i.+ng-hook'. (62)

These two lines explain the word #brish#. _O.E.D._ gives _brish_ as dialectal of _brush_, and so _E.D.D._ has the verb _to brush_ as dialect for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a tree or hedge. Brush is a difficult h.o.m.ophone, and it would be useful to have one of its derivative meanings separated off as _brish_.

14. 'A hizzing dragonfly that daps Above his mudded pond'. (28)

#Hizzing# is an old word now neglected. Shakespeare has

'To have a thousand with red burning spits Come hizzing in upon 'em'.--_Lear_, III. vi. 17.

and there are other quotations in _O.E.D._

15. #Dap# is used again, 'the dapping moth'. (45.) This word is well known to fishermen and fowlers, meaning 'to dip lightly and suddenly into water' but is uncommon in literature.

16. 'The glinzy ice grows thicker through'. (28)

Author's glossary explains #glinzy# as slippery. _E.D.D._ gives this word as _glincey_ and derives from French _glincer_ as _glisser_, to slide or glide. _Glinzy_ and _glincey_ carry unavoidable suggestion of _glint_. Compare the words in No. 19. _Glissery_ would be convincing.

17. 'The green east hagged with prowling storm'. (30)

In _O.E.D._ #hagged# is given as monopolized by the sense of 'bewitched', or of 'lean and gaunt', related to haggard. This does not suit. The intention is probably an independent use of the p.p. of the transitive verb 'to hag'; defined as 'to torment or terrify as a hag, to trouble as the nightmare'.

18. 'where with the browsing thaive'. (31)

#Thaive# is a two-year-old ewe. Wright gives _theave_ or _theeve_ as the commoner forms, and in the Paston letters it is _theyve_, which perhaps confirms _thaive_, rhymed here with 'rave'. Certainly it is most advisable to avoid _thieves_, the plural of thief, although _O.E.D._ allows this p.r.o.nunciation and indeed puts it first of the alternatives.

19. 'On the pathway side ... the glintering flint'. (32)

_O.E.D_. gives #glinter# as a 'rare' word. We have _glinting, glistening, glittering_, and _glistering_, and Scotch _glisting_.

20. 'The wind tangs through the shattered pane'. (34)

Echo-words, like ting-tang, ding-dong, &c., must have their liberty; but of #tang# it should be noted that, though the verb may raise no inconvenience, yet the substantive has a very old and well-established use in the sense of a projecting point or barb (especially of metal), or sting, and that this demands respect and recognition. It is something less than p.r.o.ng, and is the proper word for the metal point that fixes the strap of a buckle. The h.o.m.ophonic ambiguity is notorious in Shakespeare's

'She had a tongue with a tang',

where, as the _O.E.D._ suggests, the double sense of sting and ring were perhaps intended.

21. 'The grutching pixies hedge me round'. (37)

_Grudge_ and #grutch# are the same word. The use of the obsolete form would therefore be fanciful if there were no difference in the sense; but there is a useful distinction: because grudge has entirely lost its original sense of murmuring, making complaint, and is confined to the consciousness and feeling of discontent, whereas _grutch_ is recognized as carrying the old meaning of grumble. Thus Stevenson as quoted in _O.E.D._, 'The rest is grunting and grutching'. It is a very useful word to restore, but it may, perhaps, at this particular time find _grouse_ rather strongly entrenched.

22. 'Where the channering insect channels'. (46)

This is, of course, our old friend

The c.o.c.k doth craw, the day doth daw, The channerin' worm doth chide',

and it looks like an attempt to define what is there meant, viz. that the worm made a #channering# noise in burrowing through the wood.

The notion is perhaps admissible, though we cannot believe the sound to be audible.

23. 'The lispering aspens'. (53)

#Lispering.# We should be grateful for this word. _O.E.D._ quotes it from Clare's poems.

24. 'Of shallows with the shealings chalky white'. (64)