Landmarks (34 page)

‘There’s so much more to be added’, Anne Campbell said of her Peat Glossary. The same is true of
Landmarks
’ lexicons. In their unedited form they ran to nearly 3,500 words and terms (of which around 2,000 are present in the final glossaries), but of course even this represents only a fraction of the place-language used in these islands. The task of collecting and sorting sometimes felt endless, verging on overwhelming: there was always one more letter or email of enquiry to write, another word-list to hunt out, a further glossary to summon up from the library stacks, an additional reference to pursue. Bibliographies are wonderful places in which to wander, but also easy places in which to get lost.

So the glossaries are inevitably selective. They aspire neither to completeness (impossible), nor to evenness of coverage (near impossible), and reflect to a degree my own particular interests and affiliations (thus Gaelic and Scots are notably strong, as are the dialects of Cambridgeshire and its neighbouring counties). A good number of the words were transcribed in the nineteenth-century heyday of glossarizing and dialect research, but many come from more recent records, for I tried to lay an ear to place-language as it is used today from Shetland to Cornwall, while also seeking to curate and recover near-vanished speech. I sought to gather grit as well as pearls: landscape offers us experiences of great grace and beauty, but also of despair, hard labour and death. Thus the discomforts of
hansper
and
aingealach
, alongside the dazzle of
ammil
and
haze-fire.
I chose in the main to restrict myself to terms for aspects (both fugitive and long term) of land, sea, weather and atmosphere – rather than for animals, birds, insects, flowers and plants, on the grounds that formidable reference works already exist documenting the folk names of the flora and fauna of these islands. And I reluctantly decided not to allow place-names into the glossaries, given the immense compendia of toponyms that have already been compiled by place-name enthusiasts and societies throughout the land.

I wanted to make glossaries that could be explored with ease and pleasure by their readers, and that therefore did not fankle themselves with intricacy. For this reason I have not, on the whole, supplied variant spellings for individual words; I have limited the definitions of each word to a sentence or two; I have not cross-referenced between languages and dialects; and I have not detailed dates of usage. Each glossary entry is composed of three elements: a headword; a definition; and an origin in language, region or vocabulary. I have specified either a major source language (i.e. ‘Gaelic’, ‘Irish’, ‘Manx’, ‘Welsh’); or a particular region of dialect or sub-dialect use where known (i.e. ‘Galloway’ for the Galloway sub-dialect of Scots, or ‘Shetland’ for the Shetland dialect which amalgamates Scots, Gaelic, English and Norn/Norse); or a specialist vocabulary (i.e. ‘archaeological’, ‘geographical’, ‘mountaineering’, ‘speleological’). Probably some of these attributions will be thought disputable or extendable; certainly these glossaries would discontent a serious-minded linguist, mongrel as they are in their origins, and mingling as they do loanwords, nonce words, neologisms and calques.

But they are not intended as scholarly to the point of definitive; rather as imaginative resources, as testimony to the vivid particularities of language and landscape, as adventures in the word-hoard – and as prompts to vision. ‘Visit comes from
visum
, “to see”,’ writes John Stilgoe in his elegant essay-book on marsh language,
Shallow Water Dictionary
(2004):

It and
vision
stand related. To visit means to see, not to talk, but to take notice, to take note, to actively engage the eye … Landscape – or seascape – that lacks vocabulary cannot be seen, cannot be accurately, usefully visited. It is not even theoretical, if theory means what the Greek word
theoria
means, a spectacle, a viewing.

What follows, then, is a partial bibliography for my ‘theoretical’ glossaries: a list of sources that does not (with a handful of unavoidable exceptions) include works cited in the main text, the notes or the main bibliography. Nor have I been able to include details of the countless books, poems, conversations and individual correspondences from which over the years I have gleaned single words here and there, now and then. Most of the many people who have individually contributed to the glossaries are thanked in the Acknowledgements. In the list that follows, though, I have tried to recognize a little of the vast efforts of earlier glossarians, onomasticians and toponymists, from which
Landmarks
’ lexicons have so greatly benefited.

Select Bibliography to the Glossaries

Angus, James Stout,
A Glossary of the Shetland Dialect
(Paisley: A. Gardner, 1914)

Armstrong, Terence, and Charles Swithinbank,
The Illustrated Glossary of Snow and Ice
(Cambridge: Scott Polar Research Institute Special Publication, 1966)

Baker, Anne Elizabeth,
Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, with Examples of Their Colloquial Use, and Illustrations from Various Authors, to which are added, The Customs of the County
(London: John Russell Smith, 1854)

Bowyer, Richard,
Dictionary of Military Terms
, 3rd edn (Teddington: Peter Collin, 2007)

Campbell, Anne,
Rathad an Isein: The Bird’s Road – A Lewis Moorland Glossary
(Glasgow: Faram, 2013)

Christie-Johnson, Alasdair, and Adaline Christie-Johnson,
Shetland Words
(Lerwick: Shetland Times, 2013)

Clare, John,
Poems of the Middle Period
, ‘Consolidated Glossary’, ed. Eric Robinson, David Powell and P. M. S. Dawson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

Claxton, A. O. D.,
The Suffolk Dialect of the 20th Century
(Ipswich: N. Adland & Co., 1968)

Cooper, William Durrant,
A Glossary of the Provincialisms in Use in the County of Sussex
(Brighton: Fleet, 1836)

Cornewall Lewis, George,
A Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Herefordshire
(London: John Murray, 1839)

Cox, Richard V.,
The Gaelic Place-Names of Carloway, Isle of Lewis: Their Structure and Significance
(Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, 2002)

Crofts, W. M. ,
The Dialect of Craven in the West Riding of the County of York, with a Copious Glossary
(London: privately printed, 1828)

Dalzell, Tom, and Terry Victor (eds.),
The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
(London: Routledge, 2006)

Dickinson, William,
A Glossary of Words and Phrases Pertaining to the Dialect of Cumberland
(London: English Dialect Society, 1878)

Dieckhoff, Henry Cecil,
A Pronouncing Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic
(Edinburgh: Johnston, 1932)

Dinsdale, F. J.,
A Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Teesdale in the County of Durham
(London: Smith, Bell, 1849)

Dolan, Terence Patrick (ed.),
A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English
, 2nd edn (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004)

Egar, S., ‘Fen Provincialisms’, in
Fenland Notes & Queries
, Vols. 1–4 (1889–1900)

Ekwall, Eilert,
The Place-Names of Lancashire
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1922)

Elmes, Simon,
Talking for Britain: A Journey Through the Voices of a Nation
(London: Penguin, 2006)

Elworthy, F. T. (ed.),
The West Somerset Word-Book
(London: Trubner & Co., 1886)

Ewart Evans, George,
The Pattern Under the Plough
(London: Faber and Faber, 1971)

––––––,
Where Beards Wag All: The Relevance of the Oral Tradition
(London: Faber and Faber, 1970)

Forby, Robert,
The Vocabulary of East Anglia
(London: J. B. Nichols & Son, 1830)

Gepp, Edward,
An Essex Dialect Dictionary
, 2nd edn, with addendum and biography by John S. Appleby (Wakefield: S. R. Publishers, 1969)

Gill, Walter,
Manx Dialect: Words and Phrases
(London: Arrowsmith, 1934)

Griffiths, Bill,
Fishing and Folk: Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast
(Newcastle: Northumbria University Press, 2008)

––––––,
Pitmatic: The Talk of the North East Coalfield
(Newcastle: Northumbria University Press, 2007)

Huntley, Richard Webster,
A Glossary of the Cotswold
(London: J. R. Smith, 1868)

Jakobsen, Jakob,
The Dialect and Place Names of Shetland: Two Popular Lectures
(Lerwick: T. & J. Manson, 1897)

––––––,
An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland
(London: G. Nutt, 1928–32)

Leeds, Winifred,
Herefordshire Speech: The South-West Midland Dialect as Spoken in Herefordshire and Its Environs
(Ross-on-Wye: privately printed, 1974)

Major, Alan,
A New Dictionary of Kent Dialect
(Rainham: Meresborough, 1981)

Marten, Clement,
The Devonshire Dialect
(Exeter: Clement Marten Publications, 1973)

Martin, Meriel, ‘Locating the Language in the Landscape: Dialect in Exmoor National Park’, unpublished MSc dissertation (London: Birkbeck College, 2013)

Marwick, Hugh, ‘Notes on Weather-Words in the Orkney Dialect’, in
Old-Lore Miscellany
, 9 (1921), 23–33

––––––,
The Orkney Norn
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929)

Morris, Benjamin, ‘Air Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Haar of Scotland and Local Atmospheres as Heritage “Sites” ’,
International Journal of Intangible Heritage
, 8 (2013), 87–101

Murray, John,
Reading the Gaelic Landscape/Leughadh Aghaidh na Tìre
(Dunbeath: Whittles, 2014)

Newton, Michael,
Handbook of the Scottish Gaelic World
(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999)

Nurminen, Terhi Johanna, ‘Hill-Terms in the Place-Names of Northumberland and County Durham’, unpublished PhD thesis (Newcastle: Newcastle University, 2012)

Owen, Hywel Wyn, and Richard Morgan,
Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales
(Llandysul: Gomer, 2007)

Proctor, Eddie, ‘Llanthony Priory in the Vale of Ewyas: The Landscape Impact of a Medieval Priory in the Welsh Marches’, MSc dissertation (Oxford: University of Oxford, 2007), at
http://www.ewyaslacy.org.uk/doc.php?d=rs_lty_0001

Rackham, Oliver,
Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape
(1976; London: Phoenix, 2001)

Riach, W. A. D.,
A Galloway Glossary
(Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1988)

Robertson, Thomas Alexander,
The Collected Poems of Vagaland
(Lerwick: Shetland Times, 1975)

Robinson, Mairi (ed.),
The Concise Scots Dictionary
(Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985)

Rogers, Norman,
Wessex Dialect
(Bradford-on-Avon: Moonraker Press, 1979)

Rye, Walter,
A Glossary of Words Used in East Anglia (Being Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk)
(London: English Dialect Society, 1895)

Skelton, Richard,
Limnology
(Cumbria: Corbel Stone Press, 2012)

Sternberg, Thomas,
The Dialect and Folklore of Northamptonshire
(1851; Wakefield: S. R. Publishers, 1971)

Streever, Bill,
Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places
(London: Little, Brown, 2009)

Todd, Loreto,
Words Apart: A Dictionary of Northern Ireland English
(Gerard’s Cross: Smythe, 1990)

Trudgill, Peter,
The Dialects of England
, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)

Tudor, John R.,
The Orkneys and Shetland: Their Past and Present State
(London: Stanford, 1883)

Watson, Lyall,
Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind
(New York: William Morrow, 1985)

Wilbraham, Roger,
An Attempt at a Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire
(London: T. Rodd, 1826)

Wilkinson, John,
Leeds Dialect, Glossary and Lore
(Leeds: privately printed, 1924)

Wilson, David,
Staffordshire Dialect Words: A Historical Survey
(Buxton: Moorland, 1974)

Some Online Resources

Anglo-Romani Dictionary
:
http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/angloromani/dictionary.html

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
:
http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/

Defra Guidance for the Successful Reclamation of Mineral and Waste Sites
:
http://www.sustainableaggregates.com/library/docs/l0276_guidance-full.pdf

Dictionary of the Scots Language
:
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/

Dwelly’s English-Gaelic Dictionary
:
http://www.cairnwater.co.uk/gaelicdictionary/

Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
:
http://edil.qub.ac.uk/dictionary/search.php

Forestry Commission Research Glossary
:
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/INFD-5UWJWZ

Forests and Chases in England and Wales, c. 1000 to c. 1850
;
A Glossary of Terms and Definitions
:
http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/forests/glossary.htm

Geiriadur Welsh-English/English-Welsh On-line Dictionary
:
http://www.geiriadur.net/

Jèrriais Geography
:
http://members.societe-jersiaise.org/geraint/jerriais/geovoc.html

Land-Words
:
http://dawnpiper.wordpress.com/land-words/

National Land and Property Gazetteer Glossary
:
http://www.iahub.net/docs/1263829667917.pdf

Natural England SSSI Glossary
:
http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/Special/sssi/glossary.cfm

Official Secrets Act 1911
(
with 1920 amendments in square brackets
):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/1-2/28

Royal Forestry Society Glossary
:
http://www.rfs.org.uk/about/publications/tree-terms/