The Englishing of French Words; the Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems Part 4

#Sheal# is a h.o.m.ophone, 1. a shepherd's hut or shanty; 2. a peascod or seed-sh.e.l.l. Of the first, _shiel_ and _shieling_ are common forms; the second is dialectal; _E.D.D._ gives #shealing# as the husk of seeds. If this be the meaning in our quotation, the appearance described is unrecognized by the present annotator.

25. 'Dull streams Flow flagging in the undescribed deep fourms Of creatures born the first of all, long dead'. (67)

#Fourm#, explained as a 'hare's lurking place', commonly called _form_, widely used and understood because the lair has the shape or form of the animal that lay in it. But perhaps it was originally only the animal's seat or form, as we use the word in schools. _Form_ has so many derivative senses that it would be an advantage to have this one thus differentiated both in spelling and sound.

26. 'Toadstools twired and hued fantastically'. (68)

Though the word #twired# is not explained in Mr. Blunden's glossary and the meaning is not evident from the context, we guess that he is using it here of shape, in the sense of 'contorted', which would range with the quotation from Burton (given in some dictionaries) 'No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he ... slickes his haire, twires his beard [&c.]'. Here _twires_, as latest edition of _O.E.D._ suggests, may be a misprint for _twirls_. Older dictionaries give wrong and misleading definitions of this word; and a spurious _twire_, to sing, was inferred from a misreading 'twierethe' for 'twitereth' in Chaucer's _Boethius_, III m. 2. Modern authorities only allow _twire_, to peep, as in Shakespeare's 28th Sonnet,

'When sparkling stars twire not, thou gildst the even'

(whence some had foolishly supposed that _twire_ meant twinkle) and in Ben Jonson, _Sad Shepherd_, II. 1, 'Which maids will twire at, 'tween their fingers'. The verb is still in dialectal use: _E.D.D._ explains it 'to gaze wistfully or beseechingly'.

27. 'The tiny frogs Go yerking'. (69)

#Yerk.# The intrans. verb is to kick as a horse. The trans. verb is quoted from Ma.s.singer, Herrick, and Burns, who has 'My fancy yerkit up sublime': i.e. roused, lashed.

28. 'There seems no heart in wood or wide'. (8)

#Wide# as a subst. is hardly recognized. Tennyson is quoted, 'The waste wide of that abyss', but as _waste_ is a recognized substantive the authority is uncertain.

In the above examples we have taken such words as best answered our purpose, neglecting many which have almost equal claims. The richness of the vocabulary in unusual words and in words carrying unusual meanings forbids complete examination; as will be seen by a rough cla.s.sification of some of those which we have pa.s.sed over.

To begin with the words which our author uses well, we will quote as an example all the pa.s.sages in which #writhe# occurs. The transitive verb which is perhaps in danger of neglect is very valuable, and it is well employed. These pa.s.sages will also fully exhibit the general quality of Mr. Blunden's diction.

'But no one loves the aguish mist That writhes its way at eventide Along the copse's waterside'. (3)

'But now the sower's hand is writhed In livid death '. (25)

'To-morrow's brindled shouting storms with flood The purblind hollows with a leaden rain And flat the gleaning-fields to choking mud And writhe the groaning woods with bursts of pain'. (42)

'The lispering aspens and the scarfed brook-gra.s.ses With wakened melancholy writhe the air'. (53)

#Dimpling# is well and poetically used in

'While the woodlark's dimpling rings In the dim air climb'. (21)

and also _quag_ (verb) (2), _seething_ (3), _channelled_ (9), _bunch_ (11), _jungled_ (11), _rout_ (verb) (12), _fl.u.s.ter_ (13), _byre_ (13), _plash_ (shallow water) (19), _tantalise_ (neut. v.) (36), _hutched_ (43), _flounce_ (44), _rootle_ (45), _sh.o.r.e_ (verb) (59). _Lair_ (verb) (43) does not seem a useful word.

Next, words somewhat obscurely or fancifully used are _starving_ (1), _stark_ (10), _honeycomb_ (15), _cobbled_ (of pattens) (16), _lanterned_ (24), _well_ (49), _bergomask_ (for village country dances?) (25), _belvedere_ (of the spider's watch tower) (26).

While the following seem to us incorrectly used: _mumbling_ (23) used of wings; the word is confined to the mouth whether as a manner of eating or of speaking: _crunch_ (28) where the frosts crunch the gra.s.s: whereas they only make it crunchable. _maligns_ (54) used as a neuter verb without precedent, _c.h.i.n.ked_ (58) of light pa.s.sing through a c.h.i.n.k: and note the h.o.m.ophone c.h.i.n.k, used of sound. And then the line

'The blackthorns clung with heapen sloes' (55)

contains two reprehensible liberties, because _clung_ in its original proper sense means congealed or shrivelled; to _cling_ was an intransitive verb meaning to adhere together: its modern use is to stick fast [to something]--and secondly, _heapen_ is not a grammatical form; the p.p. is _heaped_.

Again, in the line

'He well may come with baits and trolls', (11)

we do not know whether _trolls_ has something to do with pike-fishing, or merely means the reel on the rod. In that sense it lacks authority(?), moreover it is a h.o.m.ophone, used by our poet in

'And trolls and pixies unbeknown'. (18)

Finally, there are a good many English country names for common plants, for example, Esau's-hands, Rabbits'-meat, Bee's balsams, Pepper-gourds, Brandy-flowers, Flannel-weed, and Shepherd's rose; and some of these are excellent, and we very much wish that more of our good English plant-names could be distinctively attached.

We will not open the discussion here, except to say that the casual employment of local names is of no service because so many of these names are common to so many different plants. Our author's #Rabbits'-meat#, for instance, is applied to _Anthriscus sylvestris_, _Heracleum Spondylium_, _Oxalis Acetosella_ and _Lamium purpureum_; all of which may be suitable rabbits' food. But each one of these plants has also a very wide choice of other names: thus _Anthriscus sylvestris_, besides being _Rabbits-meat_ may be familiarly introduced as Dill, Keck, Ha-ho, or Bun, and by some score of other names showing it to be disputed for by the a.s.s, cow, dog, pig and even by the devil himself to make his oatmeal.

_Heracleum Spondylium_, alias Old Rot or Lumper-scrump, provides provender for cow, pig, swine, and hog, and also material for Bear's breeches.

_Oxalis Acetosella_ is even richer in pet-names. After Rabbits'-meat, sheep-sorrel, cuckoo-spice, we find Hallelujah! Lady's cakes, and G.o.d Almighty's bread-and-cheese. These are selected from fifty names.

_Lamium purpureum_ is not so polyonymous. With Tormentil, Archangel, and various forms of Dead-nettle, we find only Badman's Posies and Rabbits'-meat.

The worst perplexity is that well-known names, which one would think were securely appropriated, are often common property. Our authority for the above details--the _Dictionary of English Plant-names_, by James Britten and Robert Holland--tells us that _Orchis mascula_, the 'male orchis', is also called Cowslip, Crowsfoot, Ragwort, and Cuckoo-flower.

This plant, however, seems to have suggested to the rustic mind the most varied fancies, similitudes of all kinds from 'Aaron's beard' to 'kettle-pad'.

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