Glossary of Provincial and Local Words Used in England (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Glossary of Provincial and Local Words Used in England

Provincial or Local Words are of three kinds, the first, either Saxon or Danish, in general grown obsolete from dis use, and the introduction of more fashionable terms; and, consequently, only retained in countries remote from the ca pital, where modern refinements do not easily find their way, and are not readily adopted.

The second sort are words derived from some foreign lan guage, as Latin, French, or German; but so corrupted, by passing through the mouths of illiterate clowns, as to render their origin scarcely discoverable; corruptions of this kind being obstinately maintained by country people, who, like the old Monks, will never exchange their old mumpsimus for the new sumpsimus.

The third are mere arbitrary words, not deducible from any primary source of language, but ludicrous nominations.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.