My bastard tongue

Now, before anyone says “Oooer Mrs!” or clutches their pearls in shock, I mean bastard in the sense of no longer in its original pure form…a hybrid of sorts.

These blog pages have already mentioned some of the local farm lingo that is bandied around casually that means absolutely squat to a casual bystander…mules (sheep), hogs (sheep), tud’duths (sheep), four’tuths (sheep), goyle (steep sided valley, where sheep live), mizzling (less than drizzle, but infinitely more annoying, which makes sheep wet), and dimpsey (dusk, the time when sheep do nefarious deeds out of eyesight of their overlords).

These words have slowly crept into my daily vocabulary, along with referring to anything as he, as all farmers here around seem to do.  “Turn him over (the sheep…invariably female), and pass him here (the foot trimmer) while you hold him steady (the foot)”.  Cheerzen is now my standard parting (thanks Richard for that Wiltshire-ism…I’ll get even one day), while I have started unconsciously to use your’n (your one), where’s he to (where is he) and back along (a while ago).  However, back-sunned (something that does not get much sun directly as it is facing the ‘wrong’ way) has yet to creep its way in.

A man is a mosaic of his history, and his language a bastard conceived from various influences.  While Devon and the south-west are now gently affecting my accent and vocabulary in subtle ways, bits and pieces have been accumulated along the journey.

I started off with a battle between Estuary English (Lahndan mate) and Received Pronunciation.  Environment vs mother exasperatedly trying to get us to speak properly (“It has a t in it!  Hope starts with an h”).  A failed experiment, as everyone adjusts the way that they speak subconsciously to where they are and who they are with (whom…but whatever).  I still find it easier not to pronounce the h in hair, (I’m goin for an ‘air cut), and use profanity in the standard London way – as punctuation, rather than as insult.  Someone once told me they lived in Herne Hill, and it took me a while to realise they meant Ern Ill, where even the Ill is pronounced iwl.  Which is just dahn the road from Fornton’eaf (Thornton Heath, for those RP amongst us).  Add to that a Kentish grandmother living with us (who gave me length, breadth and heighth) and my compulsive mimicry, and we were set.

Living in the States gave me a whole new set of words and phrases to incorporate.  I still now go to fill the car with gas, but have reverted to bonnet and pavement.  Ian says I am the only person in Devon who says “Dude!” but Aaron and Brontë down the road do too, so I’d like to modify that to the only person over 30.  I may be the only one who uses Jonesing (I’m really Jonesing for a hamburger… I really fancy one), and Bogart (Don’t Bogart the duvet…don’t keep it all to yourself).  Other USA-isms creep in from time to time, earning me a disgusted look.

As well as absorbing as I go along, I have a father who makes up words and always has – most of the time not realising he is actually doing it.  When he does, he shamelessly passes them off as real.  This is the same man who said he was going to hospital for his autopsy, so that gives you a bit of an idea as to the strength of his grasp on the dictionary.  However, his abandon with words has given us threddling the needle, which really ought to exist (I was convinced that it did for a long while), flobadobs (the hanging down bits of a boxer dog’s mouth), and mungling along the beach (I can’t even begin to fathom where that came from).  As he says, they are words – just the dictionary people aren’t clever enough to know what they mean.

Like father like son, I use words that exist in this household, but possibly not elsewhere.  When nothing fits, a new word is needed.  Strokage, what you give to dogs, the strokes, cuddles and general fussing that they love.  Ensmallen, to make smaller.  Sheeping (what Farmer Ian does all day, in its various forms). Ensneakulate (what puppies do when they are sneaking and inveigling and generally worming their way into or onto something, such as the sofa).

What got me thinking about all of this was that I said to Ian the other day, having failed to get any of the dogs to go out for a wee in the thunderstorm, “Nary a one wanted to go”.  Where that comes from, I have no idea…but clearly it’s in there from somewhere.

Meanwhile, after that digression, back on the farm, we’ve started more hedge-laying (or in the case of Little Field, fully grown tree laying), some new cows have arrived to be integrated with the herd, and we are starting to bring some sheep in for the winter (cattle already nicely bedded up and chewing cud).  Lambing will be a fortnight earlier next year, so things are happening sooner than normal. 

Mowing and strimming to encourage wildflowers in spring.

Ned is getting his farm inductions...lesson 5, quad bike etiquette.

Lesson 8, don't mess with the husky.