CHAPTER XI

POPULAR PHRASES AND SAYINGS

To most people the details contained in the preceding chapter will seem but the dry bones of dialect speech; they would prefer the bones to be covered with sinews and flesh. Dialect speech as the embodiment of living, many-sided, human nature is perhaps nowhere so closely seen as in a collection of the figurative terms and phrases applied to people and things. Here we approach the unlimited humour displayed in the dialects. It is of all kinds--the ironical, the sage, the frankly jolly, the merely ridiculous. It takes every shape; we meet it in similes, metaphors, proverbs, and in various other forms which elude description. A characteristic form of humour, often combined with sarcasm, appears in those comparisons wherein the moods, habits, and actions of men are likened to those of birds, beasts, fishes, and even insects in real or imaginary situations. The following is a miscellaneous selection of similes: as awkward as a cat in pattens; as big as bull-beef, said of a conceited person; as black as the devil’s nutting-bag; as blue as a whetstone; as bug [self-satisfied, vain] as a pump with two spouts; as busy as bees in a basin, said when any one is busy about trifles; as busy as a cat in a tripe-shop; as clean as print; as cold as snow in harvest, said of any one who looks hard and unfeeling; as dark as a boot; as dark as a black cow’s skin, said of a very dark night; as dateless as a rubbin’-stoop [as stupid, insensible as a rubbing-post]; as dazed as a duck against thunder; as dazed as a goose with a nail in its head; as deaf as a beetle [a wooden mallet]; as deaf as a haddock; as drunk as mice, cp. ‘We faren as he that dronke is as a mous,’ Chaucer, _Knightes Tale_, l. 403, ‘Thou comest hoom as dronken as a mous,’ _Wife of Bath’s Prol._, l. 246; as dunch [deaf] as a door-post; as dutch [fine, affected in language] as a dog in a doublet; as dutch as a mastiff, said of one who assumes an air of innocence after having done some mischief; as fat as a modiwarp [a mole]; as fast as a midge in a treacle-pot; as fast as a thief in a mill [i.e. an old windmill, built on posts, and with only one way of ingress and egress]; as fine as a new-scraped carrot, used to describe any one who has dressed himself up smartly for any occasion; as flat as a flaun [a pancake, O.Fr. _flaon_]; as fond [foolish] as a besom; as fond as a poke [bag] of chaff with the bottom end out; as foul as a curn-boggart [as ugly as a scarecrow]; as friendly as a bramble-bush; as genny [fretful] as a bear with a sore lug [ear]; as greedy as a fox in a hen-roost, referring to the fact that a fox kills many more hens than he can eat; as good-natured as a pump; as green as a leek, cp. ‘His eyes were green as leeks,’ _Mids. N. D._ V. i. 342; as happy as pigs in muck; as happy as little pigs in new straw; as handy as a gimlet, said of any one who is quick and useful; as hard as a ground toad, said of any one who looks healthy and strong; as hardened as Pharaoh; as heart-sound as a cabbage, said of any one possessing a good constitution; as hungry as a June crow; as in and out as a dog’s hinder leg, said of any one not to be depended on; as keen [strong] as Samson; as lilty as tykes in a tramp-house [as light-hearted as vagrants in a tramps’ lodging-house]; as lonely as a milestone; as lonely as a steg [gander] in sitting-time, said of a bachelor living by himself; as mild as a moon-beam, said of a particularly mild and placid person; as narrow as a drink of water, said of a person excessively thin; as nimble as a cat on a hot backstone; as nimble as a cow in a cage, said of a person who is clumsy and awkward; as plain as a pack-staff. This refers to the pedlar’s staff which supports the pack on his back, and also serves to measure his wares, and which by constant wear on his journeyings becomes exceedingly smooth. The better known version--as plain as a pike-staff--is thought to be a corruption of pack-staff. As peart as a gladdy [as lively as a yellow-hammer]; as peart as a robin; as pleased as a dog with two tails; as poor as a rames [as thin as a skeleton]; as right as pie; as sackless as a goose; as safe as a church tied to a hedge, said when superfluous precaution has been used; as sharp as a weasel; as simple as a ha’porth of cheese; as simple as a ha’porth of soap in a washing-mug, i.e. as ineffectual as so small a quantity of soap would be in so large a vessel of water, mug here denoting a wash-tub; as slender in the middle as a cow in the waist, said of a very stout person; as slick as a oont [as smooth as a mole]; as slim as a barber’s pole; as soft-hearted as a rezzil [weasel], said of a person who is absolutely cruel; as sound as a trout; as sour as a grig, referring to _grig_, the wild bullace, not to the proverbial _merry grig_; as straight as a loach, an allusion to the swift direct motion of the loach; as sure as God’s in Gloucestershire, an allusion to the large number of churches and religious houses the county used to possess; as throng [busy] as a cobbler’s Monday, said in ridicule, because a cobbler is supposed to rest on Monday to work off the effects of a drinking bout at the week-end; as tough as a withy; as wakken as a witterick [as lively as a weasel]; as warm as a bee; as weak as a midsummer gosling; as weak as a wet dish-clout; as welcome as flowers in May, said to a friend entering the house; as welcome as snow in harvest, or as welcome as water in one’s shoon, said of an undesired guest; as whisht as a winnard, an allusion to the redwings which reach Cornwall in the late autumn, and are seen there in the winter in a very thin and miserably weak condition; as windy as a wisket [basket], said of a forgetful person; as yellow as a gollan [a corn-marigold].

[Sidenote: _Similes and Metaphors_]

To look like a bit of chewed twine is to look worn out; the tears were running down his cheeks like beetles up a hill is said in ridicule of a child who is crying for nothing; to grin like a Cheshire cat chewing gravel, eating cheese, or brass wire. Charles Lamb once explained why a Cheshire cat is given to grinning: ‘I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire?--Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no great joke in it.)’ _Letters_, vol. i, p. 245. Like a chip in a mess of milk, or like a chip in porridge, said of a person or thing of no importance, useless; to stare like a choked throstle, or like a throttled earwig; like a cow handling a musket, said of a person doing something in a clumsy manner; to look like death on a mopstick is to look miserable; to work like Diggory is to work hard. The name Diggory was once a common Christian name. It occurs as the name of a farm labourer in Goldsmith’s _She Stoops to Conquer_. To go like a dinner of broth is to go successfully without hitch or friction; short and sweet like a donkey’s gallop; to go buzzing away like a dumbley-dory [a bumble-bee] in a snoxun [a foxglove], or like a dumble-dore in a warming-pan, is said of a humdrum preacher; she’s like an old ewe dressed lamb-fashion is said of an old woman gaily dressed; she’s in and out of folkses housen like a fiddler’s elbow is said of a gossiping woman; to be like a fly in a glue-pot is to be in a state of nervous excitement; to have a memory like a frog-tail is to have a bad memory, or none at all; to be like a hen on a hot girdle is to be restless and impatient; off, like a jug handle; laid out like lamb and sallet is said of a person gaily dressed; it’s bare work and poor pay, like licking honey off a thorn, said of an employment yielding only a small and uncertain profit; lost like a lop in a barn, said of a person living in too big a house; to be like a pig in a well is to be without visible means of support; to be like a pig, to do no good alive, is said of a covetous and selfish man; it’s much cry for little wool, like shearing a pig; to mend like sour ale in summer is to grow worse and worse; to look like a sow with side-pockets is said of a person absurdly dressed; anything very useless is said to be of no more use than a side-pocket is to a toad, or an umbrella to a duck; like a sucking duck, said of a foolish person; it’s slow work, like sucking buttermilk out of a sieve; to follow any one like a Tantony pig is to stick as close to him as St. Anthony’s favourite is supposed to have done to the saint, cp. ‘Lord! she made me follow her last week through all the shops like a Tantiny pig,’ Swift, _Polite Conv._ i; to sit like a toad on a shovel, said of any one who has a very uncertain seat on horseback, and also of a person in a very uncertain condition of affairs; like a toad out of a tree--thump; to live or lead a life like a toad under a harrow is to suffer from ill-treatment or ill-usage; he’s like a Tom-noup [the great tit] on a round of beef, said of a swaggering, pretentious, little man; drinking to drown sorrow is like trying to sleck a fire with gunpowder; it runs in the blood like wooden legs.

[Sidenote: _Conversational Allusions to Fictitious Persons or Things_]

Beside these are the longer similes in the style of those conversational allusions for which Sam Weller is famous. For example: all asiden like Martha Roden’s twopenny dish, said of something aslant, out of the perpendicular; like the old cow’s tail, all behind, said when any one is behind-hand with work; all to one side like the handle of a jug; same’s the crow said by the heap of toads, all of a sort; same’s the old Tucker found his halfpenny, all to a heap; all together like Brown’s cows; like Morley’s ducks, born without a notion; it’s as broad as it’s long, like Paddy’s blanket, means that it matters not which of two ways a thing is done; clean gone, like the boy’s eye, and that went into his head; like Malachi’s child, choke-full of sense, said of any one who boasts of himself or of his children; to do things by degrees as the cat ate the pestle [shank or foreleg of an animal, especially of a pig]; as dirty as Thump-o’-Dolly, that died of being washed; dressed to death like Sally Hatch; forty save one like Obitch’s colt, applied to persons of a certain age who affect youthful manners; he’s like a pig-tail, going all day and nothing done at night; he’s like the parson’s fool, he likes everything that’s good; like Jan Trezise’s geese, never happy unless they be where they baint; hitty-missy, as the blind man shot the crow; nought’s impossible, as the old woman said when they told her the calf had swallowed the grindlestone; knoppy road, as the man said when he stumbled over a cow; as knowing as Kate Mullet, and she was hanged for a fool; you’re late, as Paddy Loughran said to the ghost; as lazy as Ludlam’s dog, that leaned up against the wall to bark; long in the legs like Nanny Panter’s hens; like lucky Jan Toy, who lost a shilling and found a twopenny loaf, applied to any one who is rejoicing over a small gain purchased at the expense of a greater loss; there’s more clout than pie, as the schoolboy said when he unwrapped his dinner; he won’t do it if he hasn’t a mind to, as the man said by his jackass; ’tis neat but not gaudy, as they said of the devil when they painted his body pea-green, and tied up his tail with red ribbons, said in ridicule of showy dress; don’t be in a hurry, it’s one at a time here, as the old woman said at the wirligog [turn-stile]; as queer as Dick’s hatband, that went nine times round and would not tie at last; like the quest [wood-pigeon] always saying ‘to do’, but everybody knows it makes the worst nest in the wood; thee beest a queer quest, as the boy said to the owl; quietness is best, as the fox said when he bit the cock’s head off; as throng as Throp’s wife when she hanged herself with the dish-clout, applied to a woman who is for ever busying herself about domestic affairs, but whose house and surroundings are nevertheless always untidy; you thought wrong, like Hob’s hog, which, it is said, when the butcher went into the sty to kill it, fancied its breakfast was coming. To catch a person napping, as Moss caught his mare, is a saying which occurs as far back as 1641 in Taylor’s works. To sit like Mumchancer who was hanged for saying nothing contains an allusion to an old game of chance played with cards or dice, at which silence was essential.

[Sidenote: _Figurative and Metaphorical Terms and Phrases_]

Amongst the figurative and metaphorical terms and phrases are: ankle-biters, children, e.g. I had too many little ankle-biters to save much; abbey-lubber, an idle person, a loafer. This is a very old word occurring in Cotgrave, and also in Dr. Johnson’s _Dictionary_, in the latter it is defined as: ‘a slothful loiterer in a religious house, under pretence of retirement and austerity.’ The blacksmith’s daughter, a padlock; a bread-and-cheese friend, a true friend, as distinguished from a cupboard-lover; bread, or potatoes and point, a meal of bread, or potatoes, only; calf-lick, a tuft of hair growing on the human forehead, which will not part or lie flat; calf’s tongue, a person who is, according to occasion, mild-spoken or harsh-spoken, like the tongue of a calf, smooth on one side and rough on the other; cat-lick, a hasty, indifferent washing; cat-malison, a recess or cupboard in the ceiling, in which meat, &c., is hung, called the cat’s curse because from its position it was secure from the cat; a churn-milk [buttermilk] study, reverie, a brown study; clash-bag, a tale-bearer, a scandal-monger; cobbler’s pork, bread; cold turkey pie, bread and cheese; countryman’s treacle, garlic; a duck’s frost, a slight frost, or none at all, also a drizzling rain; fly-by-sky, a giddy, flighty person; hearthstone talk, boastful talk, promises made at night and not intended to be kept in the morning; hopping-Giles, a cripple, so named from St. Giles, the especial patron of cripples; a lawyer, a long thorny stem of bramble or briar; a lick and a promise, a slight, ineffectual washing, any work done in a perfunctory manner; a messenger, a sunbeam, a small detached cloud betokening rain; Methody cream, or milk from the brown cow, rum in tea; milestone-bread, shouting-cake, or Here be I, where be you? bread, cake, or pudding in which the currants or raisins are far apart; Miss Nancy, an effeminate man, especially one conspicuous for outward adornment, but deficient in common sense; muck-spout, a person who uses filthy language; news-poke, a gossip; nip-curn [-currant], nip-fig, nip-raisin, a person so stingy that he would nip a raisin in two; the one-armed landlord, a pump; pea-swad [-pod] days, young days; the poor man’s piano, a wringing-machine; poverty-engine, a tea-kettle; Prince-town College, Dartmoor prison; a pump without a handle, any person or thing that is quite unfit to discharge the office which he or it has to fill; Purdy’s lantern, the moon; sike-fat [rill-fat], water used instead of fat in making cakes, puddings, &c.; a snail’s gallop, a very slow pace; snow-blossom, a snowflake; a stepmother’s blessing, a loose piece of skin at the base of the finger-nail; a Sunday saint and Monday sinner, a pseudo-religious person; tea-kettle broth, weak tea, or broth made of bread, hot water, and an onion or two; tongue-bang, to scold, abuse; water-bewitched, weak tea or ale; a winter Friday, a cold, wretched-looking person; a wooden cloak, dress or sark, a coffin.

To tell a long story without much point is to beat the Devil round the gooseberry-bush; to be lazy is to have Lawrence on one’s back; Lawrence bids high wages is said of a person who is rendered almost incapable of work by the heat of the weather, or who yields to it too willingly; the boy’s gone by with the cows, and the snap’s down, are sayings addressed to one who has lost a certain opportunity, and is now too late; a person who has fallen into trouble by his own foolishness or misconduct says: Ah’ve browt me pigs tiv a bad mahkit; to make a bad bargain is to sell a hen on a rainy day, cp. ‘Never mind our son, cried my wife; depend upon it he knows what he is about. I’ll warrant we’ll never see him sell his hen of a rainy day. I have seen him buy such bargains as would amaze one,’ _Vicar of Wakefield_, chap. xii; a person who has been deceived once, and will not be so again, says: Ah’ve been ta Jerry berrin’ [Jerry’s funeral]; it’s all along of Colly Weston, said when anything goes wrong, bears reference to a very old phrase found as early as 1587. Collywest, or collyweston, is an adverb or adjective meaning askew, not straight or level. Of a project or undertaking that has failed it is said: That cake’s all duff [dough]. A Warwickshire folk-rhyme runs:

O, dear, O! My cake’s all dough, And how to make it better I do not know.

Shakespeare uses the phrase twice in the _Taming of the Shrew_, I. i. 110; V. i. 145; and it occurs in _Don Quixote_, translated by Jervas: ‘The duchess’s cake was dough, as the saying is, till she had read her letter.’ To be all mops and brooms is to be bewildered; to be all skin and grief is to be half-starved, of a melancholy disposition; anything peculiarly agreeable is said to be honey and nuts; a rich fool is said to carry his brains in his breeches-pocket; to make a great show on insufficient means is to carry a tight swagger [ship’s flag] on a rotten mast; a person singing or whistling badly is told that he would charm the heart of a wheelbarrow; goa tell thy mother to cheän ugly up is a remark often made to a pouting, ill-tempered child; choose how the cat jumps is a phrase equivalent to by hook or by crook; to comb the head with a three-legged stool is to beat, knock, cp. ‘... doubt not her care should be To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool,’ _Tam. of Shr._ I. i. 63; of the return of a penniless scapegrace it is said he’s coming home with Penny Liggan, or Peter Lacken, probably the original phrase was penny lacking; a person with a sharp temper is asked: Did ye come past the smithy?; a disagreeable person is told that he looks sour enough to come [curdle] a cheese; of a very blunt knife it is said that it would cut butter if it was hot; to attempt the impossible is to cut smoke with a leather hatchet, to eat stir-pudding with an awl, to sup sowens [oatmeal and water] with an elshin [a shoemaker’s awl], to gape against a red-hot oven, to get blood from a turnip, to stop an oven with butter, to throw straws at the wind; the dule’s had o’ th’porritch an’ the Lord’s nobbot getten th’pon for t’scrape is said of a death-bed repentance; a person belonging to a different religious denomination to that of the speaker is said to dig with the wrong foot; of a draught in a room it is said that it would deet [winnow] potatoes; of a weak person or animal it is said he can’t dint into a pound of butter; to eat rue-pie signifies to repent, regret; to eat bread dipped in fried water is to live poorly; when a horse is left standing outside a door, especially of a public-house, it is said to be left to eat sign-post hay, or sneck [latch] hay; sparrow-pie, or sparrow-pudding is a dish supposed to make a person preternaturally sharp, e.g. Her’s purty flip this morning, idden her? I rakkon her’th abin ayting sparrer-pie; Bless her heart! aw could ate her wi’ a butter-cake! is a rustic compliment; highly complimentary also is the saying: Hoo’s an e’e i’ her yed at ’ud fot a duck off th’ wayter; a long and dull discourse is said to be enough to deafen a spider; something irritating and provoking is said to be enough to urge the blood of Peter Cockerel; Fare thee well, Oula, is an expression used when parting from something one is not likely to see again; to a person smiling or laughing for no apparent reason it is said: What bist thee a-loffin’ at? I sh’d think thee ’adst fund a tiddy-obbin’s nist un’ wus a-loffin’ at the young uns; I never flacker my wings ower t’edge o’ my awn nest means that I never go beyond the bounds of my own circumstances; to fly up with Jackson’s hens is to be bankrupt; to gather or sow gape-seed is to stare about, to stare out of a window; to gather strings, or to pick up one’s crumbs, is to regain one’s health after an illness, e.g. Our Liz bin ter’ble bad, her was a’most come to a nottomy [skeleton], but her’s pickin’ up her crooms again now like, thank th’Almighty; to get one’s kale through the reek [smoke] signifies to get a good scolding; a very tall and lazy person is told to go and get measured for a pikel [pitchfork]; of a very dull, unintelligent person it is said: He’s getten a head and so has a mell [mallet]; of a scolding woman it is said: Hoo’s getten a tung sharp enough for t’shave a urchant [hedgehog]; Eh, what a tail our cat’s got! is said at the sight of unwonted finery and conceit; when the head of the family has introduced various members of the family into the same employ it is said that the fingers have got pretty close to the thumb; of a mean man it is said: He’s a rare good customer wheer they’re givin’ things away for nowt; an undecided person, wanting in manly straightforwardness is said to go betwix the oak and the rind; a person living beyond his means is said to graze beyond his tether; a man who invites friends during his wife’s absence is said to hang out the besom; He’s hing’d his fiddle on the door-sneck is said of a man in a bad temper; a person completely happy and independent may say: I wo’dn’t thenk ye to hev th’ Queen for my aunt; of a haughty woman it is said that she will hardly know the Queen’s cousin; of a coward it is said that he has no more heart than a dumbledory; of a child who repeats sentences or opinions picked up from his father it is said: He’s heard the old cock crow; to heat or warm up old broth signifies to renew an old courtship; of scant fare received in another person’s house it is said that the shelf was pretty high; to keep on good terms with any one is to keep the wheel in the nick; a person using large means for very small ends is said to be killing clocks [beetles] with clubs; a person supposed to be thoroughly acquainted with any particular matter is said to know both the hare and the hare-gate; a state bordering on starvation is described as lean lickin’ o’ thibles [sticks for stirring porridge]; to marry for money and then to be discontented with one’s lot is to like the boose [stall for a cow] but not the ring-stake; a man who marries for money, and whose wife turns out to be a scold, is said to wed t’midden for t’muck and be puizened wi’ t’stink; to live or die an old maid is to live the life or die the death of Jenkin’s hen[2]; not to be deterred from anything by blustering talk is to live too near the wood to be frightened by an owl; to a tardy messenger it is said: Theaw’rt th’reet mon for t’send for sorrow--theaw’rt so lung uppo th’road; to be in a state of bewilderment or confusion is to look two ways for Easter, or to look seven ways for Sunday; of a person who squints it is said that he was born in the middle of the week, and looked both ways for Sundays; a man not to be depended upon is said to be loose in the haft, not to be trusted further than you could throw a pig by the soaped tail; If a mak an erran’ tae yer face, it ’ill no be tae kiss ye is an expression of anger; a very cold wind is said to make thin linings, i.e. to make one’s clothes feel thin, My word! but it’s a thin wind this morning, it’ll go through you before it’ll go round you; to discourse pointlessly or beyond the mark is to milk over the can; there’s a mule in the garden signifies that something unpleasant is going on; of a person who has said or done something foolish it is said that he is plagued with the simples; to do anything in the slowest possible way, to work ineffectually, is to plough with dogs; to sew hurriedly and badly is to put in a stitch for a friend; to attempt to improve a thing which is already perfect is to put butter on bacon; to take away one’s appetite is to put one by one’s porridge, e.g. What, thoo’ll nivver come nar neea mair? Let me tell thi that’ll put nin on us by wer poddish; they don’t put up their horses together means that they are not friendly together; when something has interfered to prevent an arrangement being carried out it is said that the pigs ran through it; an old woman’s rock-staff [distaff] is a contemptuous expression for a silly superstitious fancy; of an impudent person it is said that he has rubbed his face with a brass candlestick; of a person given to petty and ‘penny-wise’ economies it is said that he saves at the spigot and lets it run out at the bung-hole; to consent readily is to say sniff if another says snaff; to earn one’s bread laboriously before one eats it is to scrat before one pecks; a person complaining of want of sociability or kindness amongst neighbours will say: ’Er didn’t say as much as Set down, dog, or: There isn’t one as’ll so much as look in and say Dog, how beest?; when milk is burnt, and adheres to the sides of the saucepan, it is said that the bishop has set his foot in it. This is a very old saying, cp. Tusser, _Husb._, ‘Blesse Cisley (good mistris) that Bishop doth ban For burning the milk of her cheese to the pan’; and Tindale, _Obedience of a Christen Man_ (1528), ‘Yf the podech be burned to, or the meate over rosted, we saye the bysshope hath put his fote in the potte, or the bysshope hath playd the coke, because the bysshopes burn who they lust and whosoever displeaseth them.’ Of a very thin person it is said that he shames his pasture; of hollow friends it is said: They’ll shak ye by t’hand an wish your airm off by t’elbow; of a tedious caller it is said: She’ll sit a hen-sit; of a stingy, niggardly person it is said that he would not part wi’ t’reek off his keal, and that he would skin a toad for the hide and tallow; of an avaricious person it is said that he would steal the cross off an ass, i.e. the dark marks across its shoulders; to idle about the streets gossiping is to spin street-webs; a description of poor fare is stare and stand back--three jumps at the pantry door and a drink of cold water; of a bow-legged person it is said that he couldn’t stop a pig in a snicket; to have a sad life is to sup sorrow by spoonfuls; to pay attention to one’s own faults is to sweep up one’s own doorstep; of a very loquacious person it is said that he would talk a butt of bees to death, or talk a dog’s hind leg off; of a tedious person it is said that he would weary a growing tree; to tell improbable stories is to tell dildrams and Buckingham Jenkins; to attract by good feeding is to tether by the teeth; to a thriftless and extravagant wife it is said: Don’t throw your property out of the door with a spade while your husband is bringing it in through the window with a spoon; of a bachelor it is said that he trails a light harrow, his hat covers his family; of a person who has known sorrow or misfortune it is said that the black ox has trodden on his foot. This saying occurs in our early literature, cp. Tusser, _Husb._, ‘Why then do folke this prouerbe put, The blacke oxe neare trod on thy fut, If that way were to thriue?’; and Lyly, _Sapho and Phao_ (1584), ‘She was a pretie wench, when Juno was a young wife. Now crowesfoote is on her eye, and the black oxe hath trod on her foot.’ To quit a business at a critical point is to unyoke in the sherd [gap in the hedge]; to like to have one’s own way is to want the water to run in one’s own ditch; a person who boasts of doing difficult things is asked if he can whistle and chew meal; to go whistling jigs to a milestone is a phrase used of any fruitless attempt or impossible undertaking; I wish I had our cat by t’tail is said by people a long way from home and fireside; to work overtime without receiving extra pay is to work for the Queen; to do work for which the pay has been already drawn is to work on a dead horse.

[2] The Carlyles, however, used this phrase in a different sense. Mrs. Carlyle in a letter to her husband (September 13, 1844) wrote: ‘The evening of the Bullers’ departure Jenkin’s Hen came, pale as a candle, with a red circle round each eye which was very touching;--he had evidently been crying himself quite sick and sore.’ Carlyle’s note on this passage is as follows: ‘Fleming. To “die the death of Jenkin’s hen” expressed in Annandale the maximum of pusillanimity.’ V. _The Second Post_, E. V. Lucas, p. 151.

[Sidenote: _Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings_]

Proverbs and proverbial sayings are very numerous in all the dialects, generally introduced in plain epigrammatical style, but sometimes preluded by: It’s an owd sayin’, an’ it’s a true un.... The following specimens may be taken as a fair sample of the whole. It will be seen that some are merely dialect readings of well-known lit. Eng. proverbs, e.g. It’s th’yarly bird as gollaps th’wurm; others convey the same meaning, but under a different figure to that with which we are familiar, e.g. To give apples to orchards, beside the ordinary lit. Eng. To carry coals to Newcastle.

It’s bad clicking butter out of a dog’s throat; a bealing coo soon forgets it cauf; the beard won’t pay for the shaving; a blate [timid] cat makes a proud mouse; co [call] thi own cawves t’gether an’ le’ mine come whoam o’ thersels; kaa [call] me an’ aa’ll kaa thee = one good turn deserves another; a child and a chicken should always be pickin’; christen your own child first = charity begins at home; a deaf man hears hae [have, take this]; wan’s as dip i’ the mood as t’oother i’ the moire = it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other; dumb folks heirs no land, said when anything is to be obtained by speaking; it’s easy holding down the latch when nobody pulls the string, usually applied to a woman who boasts about remaining single; way mut all ate a peck o’ dut afore way doy, a saying commonly supplemented with: but non on us wants it all at woonst; empty barrels make the most noise; what do you expect from a pig but a grunt?; those who can’t fadge must louster, said of people who increase their physical labour by want of foresight, cp. his head doesn’t save his heels; them at feals [hide] can find; a feeal’s bolt is seean shotten, cp. ‘Sottes bolt is son i-scoten,’ _Prov. Alfred_, c. 1275; there’s never a gant [yawn] but there’s a want of mate, money, or sleep, cp. ‘Them that gant Something want, Sleep, meat, or making o’,’ Galt, _Sir Andrew Wylie_, 1822; if ye’ve got one [i.e. child] you can run, If ye’ve got two you may goo, But if ye’ve got three You must bide where you be; ther’s no gettin’ white meeol eawt of a coal-seck = you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; geea ne hetter kail nor ye can sup yorsel; half an egg’s better an a team’d shell = half a loaf’s better than no bread; hantle o’ whistlin’ an’ little red lan’ [ploughed land] = much cry and little wool; have a little, give a little, let neighbour lick the mundle [stick for stirring porridge] = charity begins at home; the hailer is zo bad as tha stailer, cp. Germ. Der Hehler ist so gut wie der Stehler; every yerrin’ should hang by it own gills; a hundred words won’t fill a bushel; a hungry eye sees far; hunger’s famous kitchen [relish eaten with bread]; an idle mon’s yed’s the divvle’s smithy; if stands stiff in a poor man’s pocket; If ifs and an’s Were pots an’ pans There’d be naya trade for tinklers; If ifs an’ buts Were apples an’ nuts, Wouldn’t I fill my guts; a bad shearer [reaper] nivvor gat a good hyuk = bad workmen abuse their tools; never invite a friend to a roast and then beat him with the spit; nivver judge a blade by t’heft; the kail-pot’s callin’ the yetlin [pan] smutty; it isn’t oft at t’kittlin’ carries t’owd cat a maase; to learn one’s granny to lap ashes; they might lick thooms to the elbows = one is as bad as the other; a little word is a bonny word = least said, soonest mended; it is not good to live where you can hear your lord’s cock crow; ye may lock afore a haand-tief, but no afore a tongue-tief; A man may spend And God will send If his wife be good to ought, But man may spare and still be bare If his wife be good to nought; those that have marbles may play, but those that have none must look on; to measure a peck out of one’s own bushel is to judge of another’s disposition or experience by one’s own; meeat is mickle but mense [goodness, courtesy] is mair; iv’ry megullat [owl] thinks her own bubs best; the mellerest apple hes a crawk [core] i’side; o’er muckle water drowned the miller; a nimble ninepence is better than a slow shilling; peekle in yer ain pwoke neuk = mind your own business; Pity without relief Is like mustard without beef; pull the bobbin with joy, bud knock wi’ sorrow; a raffle [foolish] tung an’ a race-hoss gan t’faster t’leeter wight tha hug [carry]; a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a tethered sheep winna get fat; save thy wind to keel thy porridge; never scaud your lips in ither folk’s kail; seein’s believin’, but feelin’s God’s truth; when I see shells I guess eggs = there’s no smoke without a fire; it’s nouther seeds nor meal = neither one thing nor another; a shift and a shilling is worth thirteen pence, i.e. an expedient or contrivance will increase the value of anything, and make it go further; as well sit teum [empty] as run teum = better make the best of a bad bargain; skeer [rake out] your own fire; he maun be seun up that cheats the tod [fox]; never speak ill of the bridge that carries you; don’t stretch thi arms farther nor thi sleeves reyks [reach]; ye mauna think to win through the world on a feather-bed; Them as ’oon thrive Mun rise at five. Them as have thriven May lie till seven; tiggers should not be tarrowers = beggars should not be choosers; if a man tinkles, he must expect to be grimed; to tirr [unroof] the kirk to theek the quire = to rob Peter to pay Paul; Twoast yer bread An’ rasher yer vlitch, An’ as long as e lives Thee ’ooll never be rich; the toll is heavier than the grist = the game is not worth the candle. Formerly the miller always took his payment in a toll of the corn, a custom alluded to in a metaphorical epitaph found in Surrey on the tombstone of a miller:

O cruel Death, what hast thou done, To take from us our mother’s darling Son? Thou hast taken toll, ground and drest his grist, The bran lieth here, the flour is gone to Christ.

A toom purse makes a blate merchant; other tow to teaze, other oats to thrash = other fish to fry; dunna waste a fresh haft on an ould blade = don’t throw good money after bad; there’s aye some water where the stirk [heifer] drowns; better wed over the mixen than over the moor; the well is not missed until it is dry; better a wet mitten than a cold hand; t’wheem sew yets t’draff [the still sow eats the pig-wash]; A whistling woman and a crowing hen Will fear the old lad out of his den; he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar = a wilful man must have his way.

An interesting elucidation of the common proverb: Don’t spoil your ship for a ha’porth of tar, is given by comparison with the dialect version of it, which remains faithful to the original. The saying Dunnot loaz t’yow [ewe] for a hawporth o’ tar, i.e. do not be niggardly or over-economical in farming, is recorded as far back as 1636 in the form ‘hee that will loose a sheepe (or a hogge) for a pennyworth of tarre cannot deserve the name of a good husband’. It thus becomes clear that our word ‘ship’ is here a dialect form of sheep, and that the ha’porth of tar does not signify the remedy for a leaking vessel, for which it would be wholly inadequate, but the means for marking the owner’s initial on a sheep’s back to prevent its being unrecognized when found straying. The introduction of spoil for lose is no doubt due to the misunderstanding of ‘ship’.

[Sidenote: _Phrases referring to Time_]

We noted at the beginning of