DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

'Mongrel' I'm taking an interest in them at the moment and looked the origins of the word up in Webster. The root for mongrel is OE 'gemang' which of course has connotations of 'mixed. Looked mixed up and found the OE for it was 'mengan' which is thought to derive from Old German 'mengen'. Not a perfect match but I think this is where mongrel came from.

[Whyperion]

As in Merger ?

[chinatyke]

Interesting word, I've never thought about it before. We often just take words for granted without knowing their origin.
Apparently 'among/amongst' has the same derivation, from on gemang = in the group of (Collins English Dictionary). Perhaps the word 'gang' comes from the same origin but that origin is not given in Collins, whereas The Concise Oxford Dictionary simply states it is from 'going' and the Scottish word gang=going.

[Stanley]

According to Webster: Gang first surfaced in Middle English in about 1300/1350, Old English 'Gang' or 'gong'; manner of going, way or passage. Old High German 'gong', Old Norse 'Gongr' and Gothic 'gagg'. An old word.
Merge: 1630/1640 from the Latin 'Mergere' to dip, immerse or plunge into water.

[Whyperion]

ChinaT , I thing I have heard Yorkshire/Durham folk speak of 'I'm agang' which If I recall context is I am With / I am Going / I am Going With.

Gang Plank - the bit of wood connecting a marine vessel to the shore for embarkation of passengers and crew ? So Gang could run into joining - hence membership of a group ?

[Stanley]

Drummond on the history of English food is stuffed full of good references.
'Sweet Fanny Adams'. Most of us will know this as a euphemism for Sweet FA and the dictionaries of Phrase and Fable are silent. However, Drummond reports that it was the nickname given to the tinned meat produced in the Navy's own canning plant established in 1865 at Deptford. There was a notorious murder in 1867 when a young woman called Fanny Adams was murdered at Alton in Hampshire, her body afterwards being hacked into small pieces. The navy made the connection and so the new Admiralty tinned meat became 'Sweet Fanny Adams.
Another word came to my attention, 'amateur'. From the French for lover and hence something that someone does for the love of it rather than necessity.
One thing that has been bothering me. We used to call mustard 'mouse turd'. I know the derivation is French 'moutarde' but can't help wondering about my version. The mustard seeds do look like mouse muck!

[Stanley]

When I was farming in Warwickshire the tine of a fork was always called a 'grain'. Don't think I have heard it in the North. In one of the Barlick inventories that Ken posted there is mention of a ;three grande fork' so perhaps it used to be common here.

[Wendyf]

A fork is called a grape in Scotland.

[Bodger]

a "grape" in Ireland also

[Stanley]

I've come across that one as well. There used to be a special post-hole shovel, very heavy and narrow and I have an idea I've heard them called a 'graft'.

[hartley353]

We used to dig post holes with a rabbiter and a spoon, the rabbiter was the tool for digging as Stanley describes, the spoon went down the hole to collect the soil and bring it to the top, it looked like a dish at right angles to the end of a pole.

[Stanley]

There was a tool like a big pair of sugar tongues as well. A five grained muck fork was called a 'gripe' in Warwickshire. They also had a very heavy two tined fork for digging heavy clay and there was a name for that but I forget it. You just turned the clay up in big lumps and jet the frost break it down.

[Stanley]

I have a reference to prove that 'greaves' is the term used in the fat refining business to describe the residue after primary extraction of oil and fat from minced meat. Nice to know that I got the name right all these years after coming across it in my days on the tramp when we carried anything, no matter how bad it smelled!

[Stanley]

A word popped up and tweaked me yesterday. What's the origin of 'farrier'. Without looking it up I can't make a connection with horses......

[Wendyf]

I should know that but I had to look it up Stanley. It comes from the French word for blacksmith which is ferrier, ferrum (as I'm sure you know) being the latin for iron.
Blacksmith & farrier mean exactly the same thing, but nowadays anyone shoeing horses has to have a qualification from the "Worshipful Company of Farriers" so the word farrier has stuck with those specializing in horses.

[Stanley]

Good. Webster agrees with you. The next word was 'farrow, birth of pigs and it comes from the OE word for a pig. You could spend a lifetime in a dictionary!

[Stanley]

'Snarl', what a lovely word! Derivation seems to be from Low German 'snarren'.

[Stanley]

'Whelp' meaning dog. Very common in Scotland but it's a long time since I heard the word used. First seen before 900AD in Middle and Old English, 'hwelp' and in High German as 'Welf'.

[Tripps]

I think we mentioned this on the old version of the site, when discussing the phrase "skenning like a basket of whelps"
Some said whelks, but I'm sticking to whelps.

[Stanley]

Nowt wrong with your long-term memory David! How are you on short-term?

[Stanley]

Here's an esoteric one for you. I was reading a reprint of a book written in 1898 on Corn Milling. There is reference to domestic grinding in Rome. The common flat stone and 'muller' was called 'mola trusatilis from the Latin word for 'thrusting' which is the movement of the grinder. The quern, with its revolving stone is called 'mola versatilis' from the Latin for 'turning' and this prompted me to look up the root of the word versatile in Webster. Sure enough it derives from the Latin word 'versatilis' revolving or many sided. So our word versatile has a direct connection with this and this prompted another thought, it is almost certainly the root for 'turning your hand to anything'.
I know, I spend too much time puzzling words out......

[Stanley]

Ever come across the word 'muller'? It's a cylindrical stone with a flat face used for grinding grain, seeds or ingredients for ink or paint on a flat saddlestone. This was the first domestic corn mill.

[Wendyf]

Not muller, but we do mull things over in our minds.

[Tripps]

"Ever come across the word 'muller'? "
Not in the context of flour milling, but I've heard mullered used by Rugby Union types to mean a little over refreshed.
I stayed at a Hotel once called Molino Blanco meaning White Windmill in Spanish - must be from same root.
Not sure where mulled wine comes into this though.

[Stanley]

'Muller' has its root in the Latin 'mola' a grinding mill. 'Mull' as in mulled wine is thought to originate from a dialect word meaning to mix or pulverise and might also have its root in 'mola'. Could explain the RU use of 'mullered'.