Chapter IX Alliterative and Rhyming Phrases and Compounds
Alliterative Phrases
A love of alliteration and rhyme in phrase and compound has always been characteristic of English as a whole. We tend naturally to say weary and worn, or sad and sorrowful, and we cling to compounds like helter-skelter and pell-mell. We even begin the education of our babies by teaching them to call a dog a bow-wow, and a horse a gee-gee. It is not, therefore, surprising to find this prevalence still more marked in the dialects, where all normal tendencies have fuller sway than in the standard language. Some of the alliterative compounds are very expressive. A few examples are: chim-cham (Som. Dev.), undecided talk, e.g. You niver can’t get no sense like out o’ un, cause he’s always so vull o’ chim-cham, which was said of a certain candidate for Parliament; easy-osie (Sc.), easy-going, e.g. He was an easy-osie bodie, a kind of we’ve-aye-been-providit-for-and-sae-will-we-yet sort of man; feery-fary (Sc.), tumult, noise, passion, cp. ‘Cupido... Quha reft me, and left me In sik a feirie-farye,’ Montgomerie, Cherrie, 1597; flim-flam (Som. Dev.), idle talk, nonsense, e.g. Don’t thee ever tell up no such flim-flam stuff, else nobody ’ont never harky to thee, nif ever thee’s a-got wit vor to tell sense; giddle-gaddle (Yks. Chs.), a contrivance used instead of a stile or gate, an effective bar to cattle and a trial to stout persons; giff-gaff (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. Lei.), mutual obligation, reciprocity, used especially in the proverbial saying: giff-gaff makes good friends. A farmer said in reference to a douceur which his landlord’s agent appeared to expect: Chiff-chaff, feer an’ squeer, that’s roight enew, but this here giff-gaff grease i’ fist sort o’ woo’k doon’t dew for may. The word is found as far back as the year 1549 in one of Latimer’s sermons: ‘Giffe gafe was a good felow, this gyffe gaffe led them clene from iustice.’ Hiver-hover (Stf. War. Wor. Shr.), wavering, undecided, e.g. Did’n yo goo? No, I wuz ’iver-’over about it fur a bit, but as I said I oodna, I didna; kim-kam (Shr.), awry, perverse; midge-madge (I.W. Som.), confusion, disorder, e.g. Go home hon a will, ’tis always the same, all to a midge-madge, and her away neighbourin’; miff-maff (n.Cy. Yks. Lan.), nonsense, foolishness; mingle-mangle (Sc. Lan. Lei. Nhp.), a medley, a confused mixture, cp. ‘Centon, a mingle-mangle of many matters in one book,’ Cotgr.; nilder-nalder (Yks.), to idle, to waste time, to pace along idly, e.g. Nilder-naldering and sinter-sauntering; pip-pop (Bck.), a swing-gate, such as is called in many dialects a kissing-gate; reel-rall (Sc. Irel.), a state of confusion, disturbance; trinkum-trankums (Sc. Cum. Lan. Chs. e.An.), trinkets, gewgaws; wee-wow (Chs. War. Wor. Shr. e.An. Som. Dev. Cor.), crooked, ill-balanced, unsteady, e.g. I knowed well enough that loäd ŏŏd never raich wham, it wuz all wee-wow afore it lef’ the fild. As a noun it is common in the phrase: all of a wee-wow. It can also signify squinting, e.g. ’Er babby’s eyes is drefful wee-wow-like. Dr. Johnson exhibits some contempt for this type of word, as for example: ‘Twittletwattle. n.s. [A ludicrous reduplication of twattle.] Tattle, gabble. A vile word.’ Cp. Twattle (Yks.), foolish talk, gossip.
In some dialects even the cat takes up the alliterative tale; the purring sound she makes is called three thrums (Sc. Cum. Yks. Chs. Lin.), and when children beg to be told what she sings, Pussy’s song put into words is: Three threads in a thrum, Three threads in a thrum.
Glunch and gloom, Peak and pine
It is very common to find two verbs of similar meaning coupled together by and, as for instance: to blare and blore, of cattle, to bellow, low. A Lincolnshire preacher, discoursing on Saul’s capture of Agag said: You seä Samuel was a prophet o’ th’ Loord, an’ was not to be sucked in wi’ Saul’s lees, soä he said unto him: ‘Saul,’ says he, ‘your goin’ about to tell me ’at you’d dun as the Lord tell’d ye is all a heap o’ noht at all. Do ye think I can’t hear them theare beäs blarin’ an’ bloorin’, an’ them sheäp bealin’ oot? Naaither God nor me is deäf, man.’ To chop and change is so common as to have become a colloquialism. It is a very old phrase, occurring as far back as fifteenth-century English literature. Tusser has: ‘... chopping and changing I cannot commend with theefe and his marrow, for feare of ill end.’ To glop and gauve (Yks.) means to stare stupidly, gaze open-mouthed; to glunch and gloom (Sc.), is to look surly or sulky, to whine, grumble; to peak and pine is to waste away, cp. ‘Weary se’nnights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine,’ Macbeth, I. iii. 23; to pell and pelfer (Chs.) is to eat daintily, to pick and choose when eating; to quimble and quamble is to fondle, caress; to rap and ran or rein (Lakel. Yks. Ess.), rap and rear (Lin.), rap and reeve (Cum.), are all expressions signifying to seize with violence, get by any means, fair or foul; to rap and rend (Sc. n.Cy. Shr. Hrf. e.An.) has the same meaning, but can also bear the sense of to destroy property, waste. Dr. Johnson has: ‘To Rap and rend [more properly rap and ran...] To seize by violence,’ exemplified by a quotation from Butler’s Hudibras. To rug and rive (Sc. n.Cy.) is to pull and tear, to drag forcibly. A Northumbrian proverbial saying is: Like the butter of Halterburn, it would neither rug nor rive, nor cut with a knife—it was confounded. To screw and scruple (Brks.) is to beat down in price; to steven and stoor (Yks.) of the wind, is to howl and bluster. To tew and tave (n.Cy. Lin. Dor. Som.) is to toss, to throw the hands wildly about as a person in fever does; to tug and tew (Yks.) is to toil, to work hard and incessantly, e.g. T’poar slave mun tug an’ tew wi’t wark Wolivver shoo can crawl; to twist and twine (Nhb. Cum. Yks.) is to whine, cry, to be peevish and out of temper; squetched and skywannocked (Lin.) signifies all awry; to meddle or (and) make (in gen. dial. use) is to interfere in matters which do not concern one—the phrase is generally used in the negative, as in the old Berkshire proverb: Quoth the young cock, I’ll neither meddle nor make.
In the same way two nouns beginning with the same letter are yoked together to form a phrase, as for example: care and cark (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Glo. Suf. I.W. Som.), anxiety, sorrow; by raff and reng (Yks.), by little and little; scrap and screed (Wm.), every particle, e.g. He’s geean, an’ teean iv’ry scrap an’ screed he could lig hands on. I’ve neither brass nor benediction (Yks.) means I am quite destitute. Of a total disappearance it may be said: There was nowther head nor hair on’t, moit nor doit (n.Yks.).
Rhyming Words and Phrases
Beside these are the rhyming words and phrases, such as: argle-bargle (Sc. Lin.), to argue; crawly-mawly (e.An.), poorly, ailing; dimmy-simmy (Shr.), languishing, affected; eeksie-peeksie (Sc.), equal, on an equality; ham-sam (Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan.), adv. irregularly, confusedly; hanchum-scranshum (Lin.), bewilderment, confusion; havey-cavey (Yks. Lan. Der. Nhp.), unsteady, trembling in the balance; hay-bay (Lakel. Cum. Yks.), a hubbub, uproar, commotion; hirdum-dirdum (Sc. Lan.), confused, noisy mirth; how-skrow (Lakel.), disorder, a state of confusion, e.g. It’s cleenin’ time an’ we’re o in a how-skrow; kabbie-labby (Sc.), an altercation, wrangle; mimpsy-pimsey (Dev.), fastidious, affected, e.g. Whot a poor mimpsey-pimsey craycher ’tez, tü be sure; nibby-gibby (Cor.), a narrow escape; otty-motty (Chs. Der.), suspense, e.g. Keepin’ him in otty-motty, an noather tellin’ him one thing or another—it’s enough to vex annybody; pinky-winky (n.Cy. Lan. Nhp.), very small; quavery-mavery (e.An.), undecided, hesitating; rory-tory (Som. Dev. Cor.), loud, noisy, also gaudy, tawdry, e.g. Of all the rory-tory bonnets ever you zeed, Mrs. Vickery’s beat ’em all, he was all the colours of the rainbow. The word occurs in Fielding’s Jonathan Wild, cp. ‘Cavaliers and rory-tory ranter boys.’ Tacky-lacky (Som. Dev.), a drudge, a person at every one’s beck and call, e.g. Poor maid, her’s tacky-lacky to all the tother sarvunts.
Moil and toil, Rape and scrape
To biver and wiver (Ken. Dev.) means to shake and tremble, e.g. Aw, Loramassy, Joan, ’ow you did stertlee me! I’ve abin a-bivering an’ a-wivering iver zince. Yü shüde be more thortvul; to blare and stare (War. Glo.) is to wander about, e.g. What bist a blarin’ and starin’ thur for?; to codge and modge (War.) is to muddle and cobble, e.g. You’ve codged and modged this sewing pretty well; to haggle and jaggle (Yks. Lakel.) is to quarrel; to holler and boller (Lei.) is to shout, halloo, e.g. They was a-’ollerin’ an’ a-bollerin’, yo moight a-’eern ’em a moile off; to moil and toil (in gen. dial. use) is to work hard, e.g. Yo met’n mwoil an’ toil a couple o’ ’ours, an’ ’ardly get a wisket full. Tusser tells us in his autobiographical poem:
When court gan frowne and strife in towne,
And lords and knights saw heauie sights,
Then tooke I wife, and led my life in Suffolke soile.
There was I faine my selfe to traine,
To learne too long the fermers song,
For hope of pelfe, like worldly elfe, to moile and toile.
To rape and scrape (Chs. Not. Glo. e.An.) is to scrape together, to get by any means in one’s power; to raunch and scraunch (War. Shr.) is to snatch greedily, e.g. Look at that ŏŏman [a gleaner] raunchin’ an’ scraunchin’, ’er’ll be all o’er the fild afore the others bin in at the gate; to slave and drave (Wil.) is to toil; shaffling and haffling (Chs.) means acting in an undecided, shilly-shallying way; wafting and draughting (Chs.) means bustling about; to wink and skrink (Cor.) means to make signs by winking. The following story is told of a Cornish lad: he had been left in charge of the Sunday dinner whilst the family were at church, and like King Alfred, he let it burn. He repaired to the church, and endeavoured by his energetic signs from the porch, to draw out the housewife. She in turn made signs to him to wait, when, growing impatient, he cried out: ‘Yiew may winky and skrinky as long as yiew du plase, but the figgy dowdy [plum pudding] is burnt gin the crock.’
By habs and nabs (Yks. Lin.), and by hobs and jobs (Shr.) are phrases signifying little by little, bit by bit; by hulch and by stulch (Chs.) is equivalent to by hook or by crook; hitheracs and skitheracs (Yks.) are odds and ends.