constant boozer, chronically "on the ball." A crack over the stoups filling at well or pump was accentuated with such expressions of surprise as my certie! my san! losh peetie me! goavy-dick!
The inborn habit of thrift led to fine distinctions in expressions for small quantities:—
- Tate=Eng. tit, tot, teat.
- Cum=Orcad. "a curney o' piltacks" (large number of coalfish).
- Stime=a speck, "canna see a stime."
- Bittock=little bit.
- Puckle=a little "picked up."
- Wheen=piece broken off, akin to Lat. cuneus, a wedge.
- Feck=a good deal.
- Hantle=handful.
- Gowpen=what one can scoop up.
- Nievefu'=a fistful.
- Wee hue (Renfr.)=a small portion as a tasting, "a wee hue mair," anither drappie.
An obsolete word, haet (cf. Boer lets, ocht or anything, niets, nocht) is in Burns's "Twa Dogs,"—
"But Gentlemen and Ladies warst,
Wi' ev'n down want o' wark they're curst,
They loiter, longing, lank, an' lazy:
Tho' deil haet ails them, they're uneasy."
The "hale apothick" expressed what is vulgarly known as "the whole bilin." I do not think the word, as thus used, had anything to do with the legal "hypothec." Besides, it would be very awkward to have two initial aspirates so close together. The term is the Greek apotheke (a granary), very early adopted in Germany and Holland for a shop or general store. Both in sense and sound this form is preferable to "hale hypothik."
The best qualities of the goodwife came out in distress, as when a glisk o' cold or a groosin (cf. Ger. "grausen," to shudder) brought on a hoast, or foreboded the nirls (measles), or maybe the more serious broonkaidis; or taebetless fingers had to be
