VI INTRODUCTION. Glossary of Sussex Provincialisms,^ and from Mr. Akennan's WHt- shire Glossary,^ which arc also in use in Hampshire. But the dialect of Hampshire contains a very large numher of words which are peculiar to the county. And there are special forms and incidents in the dialect, some of which I may here note. The consonants in a word are frequently transposed, e, g, : — ^Aks for ask; apem/or apron; aps for aspen; claps /or clasp; gear t* /or great; haps /or hasp ; waps/or wasp, and many others.^ In many words other consonants are suhstituted for those used in English, or are added, as : Ast. /c/r ask ; hrucklo or hrickle for brittle ; cast or casty for cask ; chimley for chimney ; pank for pant ; pasmets for parsnips ; sharf for shaft ; turmit for turnip ; tinkler for tinker ; vrBxlfor warp, and others.* The article is frequently omitted. As * Be'est a gwine to vyer 1 * for * Be'ost a going to the fair ' ; * You'd best call at house, afore you leaves work,* for 'At the house*; *He was up agin stable,'/or 'against (near to) the stable.' The old English plural in en is still heard among the old people. As * housen ; peasen ', &c. ; but it is not common. It is, however, almost universal to form the plural of words ending in ^ or «^ in e^. Thus the plural of waps is wapses; of aps, apses; of beast, beasts ; of ghost, ghost^s; of post, post^s, &c. In pronouns, the nominative is used for the inflected cases, as : • It be'ant no pleasure to wc ' ; * What good '11 it do toe ' 1 * I'm a gwine to put she to bed.' And conversely (strangely enough) the inflected case is often used for the nominative, as : ' Shall 7is start at once ? '
- A Glossary of Provincialisms in use in Sussex, By William
Durrant Cooper. 1852. ' A Glossary of Words, <fcc. in use in Wiltshire, By John George Akerman. 1842. ^ Pronounced as in learn.
- Cf. A.S. dxian, 4csian, to ask; seps, an aspen tree ; M.E. elapsed,
to clasp; A.S. hsBpse, a hasp ; weeps, a wasp. — W. W. S.
- Cf. M.E. brukel, brutel, brittle (from different verbs). Pank, for
pant, occurs in Dryden.— W. W. S.
