Page:Glossary of words in use in Cornwall.djvu/518

INTEODUCTION. A VBRT long residence in Hampshire, and an acquaintance with its dialect) led me to consent to edit the following Glossary for the English Dialect Society. I had in the coarse of many years collected a number of words and phrases used by the people of Korth Hampshire. And I the more gladly give them an enduring record, because the use of them is fast disappearing. However great the advantages of the present advanced education of the middle and lower classes, the operation of ^National and Board Schools is fast effacing all distinctive language in the people of this county ; and, in another generation or two, it will probably disappear altogether. Already I have found the children of parents who speak among themselves the dialect of the county, ignorant of the meaning of words commonly used by their fathers. And even among the older people there is a growing disinclination, when speaking to educated persons, to use, what I may call, their vernacular dialect. So that when asked to repeat a word, they frequently — from a sort of false shame — substitute its !plnglish equivalent. And it is only perhaps my habit of being much with my workmen and cottagers, and fre- quently using their own words and names of things, that has enabled me often to overcome this shyness, and so to recover some words in this Glossary. The language or dialect of the counties which formed the king- dom of Wessez has in many respects great similarity. And of these the people of the district formed by West Sussex, Hampshire, and Wiltshire use many words in common. Hence in the following Glossary I have inserted many words from Mr. Durrant Cooper's