as the great advantage of exercise is lost by being played under cover, and by the time each one has to wait before his turn comes. It is generally, too, a mode of dissipation encouraged by tavern-keepers, to whose precincts these nine-pin alleys, as they are frefrequently called, are generally attached. It is extremely common in New England, there being hardly a tavern in the neighborhood of a town that has not one of these inducements to idleness and apologies for drinking and small gambling. There are many minor games, played by boys, that have not been altered, but played in New England as they are now, and have been for ages in old England. BRAN, or BRAND-NEW. This word, that is so very common, originally meant anything new or just made, but it is more generally applied to new clothes, from their glossy appearance, given by the tailor's hot goose. Brant, or bran, is an old word for burn. Brandy comes from it. In "Beaumont and Fletcher" it is called brandewine, no doubt burnt wine. It is said that this name was given to the Brandywine River, from distilleries of that liquor on that stream. Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush," a character (Clause) cries out, "Buy any brandewine? buy any brandewine ?" Brandewine is the Dutch for brandy, whence, probably, the name of the river. Shakspeare's word "fire-new," is the same as brand new. In BREWIS. This word, in England, means a crust of bread thrown into a pot where salt-beef is boiling. Some old writers use it for broth. In New England, in our school days, it meant flinty crusts of rye and Indian bread softened with milk and eaten with molasses. They had a custom, in the North of England, of running for the broose at weddings; it is the same word. BRISK UP. "Come, brisk up," applied to one who seems sad; also, "he's brisken up at last," are frequent in New England. The last expression is in the Craven Dialect. BUMBLE-BEE. By some this word, common to both countries, is derived from the noise the bee makes in flying; others derive it from a Teutonic word, bommele, a drone. Humble-bee, as it is sometimes called, is also derived from the humming noise that it makes in flying. See Tod's Johnson. BUMPING. In England, this means a particular sort of punishment, used among school-boys. "Cobbing," is another word for the same thing. In our school-days, in New England, it was employed upon all new-comers, as a kind of greeting or introduction to their companions. Whether it exists anywhere now, we do not know. At the school to which we allude, it was dropped about 1817 or 1818. There was no pain in the operation, unless there was resistance, or some one of the bumpers had a private animosity to gratify Under what circumstances it is employed, in England, we do not know; here it seems to have been intended to imply something like the granting the freedom of a corporation. "Washing" was another of the customs at the New England seminary. This was in winter, the other the salutation of other parts of the year. It consisted in plunging the freshman into a snowdrift and rubbing his face with snow. Grose, in his Classical Dictionary, says that bumping was a ceremony performed on boys perambulating the bounds. of the parish on Whitmonday, when they were bumped against the stones marking the boundary, in order to fix them on their memory. According to Moor, bumping is practiced in Suffolk, as a punishment among school-boys. The manner of perform ing this evolution seems the same in both countries, though with us it was not always designed as a punishment, but as a kind of informal introduction to the privileges of companionship. BUNG YOUR EYE, for drink a dram. Strictly speaking, to drink till one's eye is bunged up, or closed. (Class. Dict.) This cant phrase I have never heard; but boys at school said, “I'll bung your eye," meaning to strike one in the eye, the consequence of which was generally a bunged eye, that is, so swollen as to be closed up. It is derived, no doubt, from bung, which came from a Welsh word that means a stopple.-TOD'S JOHNSON. BURYING, for a funeral; as, "he is gone to a burying," is heard often in New England, and in several parts of England. BUTTER-FINGERED. Mr. Carr defines this as one who is afraid of touching a heated vessel or instrument; Mr. Brockett, "one who lets things slip from his fingers." This was our mode of applying the expression. A boy who did not catch his ball was called butter-fingered. C. CAKE, or CAKEY, a foolish fellow. (Class. Dict.) Occasionally heard here. CANT, to set upon edge. (Forby.) This is our mode of using it. CATCH. This is pronounced, in New England, ketch. It is also so pronounced in parts of England, and is a pronunciation as old as Chaucer. In Essex they say kitch. "Lord! trowe ye that a coveitous wretche That blameth love, and hath of it despite That of the pens that he can mucke and ketche." There He also, in another place, spells it catche. appears a disposition, in certain of the more AngloSaxon parts of England, to turn short a into short e, as bed for bad. They have their authority in some of the oldest writers in the language. I have never heard bad so pronounced; but gether, for gather, is common, and is brought from our English ancestors, who took it from a very remote source. A is also changed in calf, as keaff; in care, as keer, and sometimes ker; chair is called cheer; rather, ruther; farther, further and furder; marsh, mash; harsh, hash; scarce, scurce. All these peculiarities in the use of a are common in parts of England, and we have preserved them. E in several words becomes a, as marchant, sarmon, arrand, varmin; yaller, for yellow. The diphthong ea is made a in some cases: arnest, for earnest; larn, for learn; earth becomes airth; deaf, deef. Suffolk and Norfolk are the portions of the mother country to which we are indebted for these seeming oddities, though really ancient modes of speaking. CAT'S CRADLE, or SCRATCH CRADLE. This is a well known game among children, in this country as well as in England. I find it mentioned in only one of the works on British provincialisms in my possession. Britton's "Provincial Words of Wiltshire and the Adjacent Counties." This is curious, as this game is known everywhere here, and Wiltshire is one of the inland counties of England, and one from which few probably have ever emigrated to this country, at least in comparison with the sea-board counties. Whether this child's sport is, then, as common in England as here, admits of a doubt. CAVE, to fall into a hollow below. (Forby.) We mean, by caving, the falling in of any excavation, as the banks of a ditch, or sides of a grave. A very hungry traveler made a very expressive application of the word, by saying his stomach was so empty that he thought he should cave in. CAWKERS. The hind part of a horse's shoe, sharpened and turned downward, to prevent the animal from slipping. (Brockett.) This is, no doubt, the word. we call corks. We also say corked horse's shoes are sharpened in winter. of England it is spelled cawkins. shoes, when the In some parts |