VII.—GLOSSARY
SCOTS SECTION
To confine within reasonable compass the huge mass of vocables and phrases introduced into the text, a selection has been made. As the whole aim of the volume is to interest the reader in the Scots Vernacular, this element has been made the dominatn feature of the list. Thus Scots head-words are given in italic. Words, also, of which the origin is not indicated are to be taken as Scots. Italicised words are to be considered cognates with each other or with the word under which they are place. Only such words as are held to be cognate with Lowland Scots have their linguistic origin noted thus—E.=English, G.=Gothic, Du.=Dutch, C. Du.=Cape Dutch, Da=Danish, Fr.=Frisian, Ic.=Icelandic, N.=Norse. To these add local varieties of Scots, such as Orc.=Orcadian, Cu.=Cumberland, No.=Northumberland, North=Northern, Ab.=Aberdeen, Mo.=Moray, Kinc.=Kincardine. Relationship with these emphasises the essentially Teutonic character of the Scots Vernacular. Outside this circle are noted Celtic (Ga.=Gaelic) and French (F.), illustrative of external influences of historical interest. Scarcely any references have been made to general Ind.-Ger. affinities in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Semitic. Obvious contractions are or.=origin, obsc.=obscure, prob.=probably, conn.=connected, cog.=cognate, perh.=perhaps.
Dictionaries Consulted—
- New English or Oxford Dict.—as yet published, ending with "Ribaldously," excepting O and P—referred to as N.E.D.—Editors, Sir James Murray, LL.D., and William Craigie, LL.D.
- Skeat's Philological—Sk.
- Skeat's Moeso-Gothic Glossary—Sk.
- Jamieson's Scottish—Jam.
- Klüge's German Etymological—Kl.
- Edmonton's Orcadian Glossary—Ed. or Shet.
- Gregor's Buchan Dialect—Bu.
- Prevost's Cumberland Glossary—Cu.
- MacBain's Celtic—MacB.
- Jakobsen's Shetland Dialects.
Annotation, more or less complete, have been made on many of the words. These take the place of what might have been footnotes throughout the text. Wherever, too, the explanations, or conjectures in tracing to their sources words occurring in the text, have failed to find support from authorities quoted, such discrepancies have been clearly marked by a † on the left, so that the reader can at once check all doubtful statements. Such annotations are entirely supplementary to the discussion of the word in the text.
With regard to the dictionaries referred to above, the permanent value of Professor Wright's monumental work, the English Dialect Dictionary, must be gratefully acknowledged, but for the special purpose of my subject it could be of no great service. It could have furnished many273
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