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Description: | Mr Robbins talks about the type of farming practised locally and compares his experiences with the farm workers of today. Stourport is a town just to the west of Hartlebury and Kidder refers to Kidderminster, a town just to the north. Orleton is a village to the southwest of Hartlebury. It is presumed that The Wren’s Nest refers to a public house in Kidderminster.
lexis
fold-yard = straw-yard where cattle are kept for fattening over winter; keech = cutting of hay; elevator = machine used for raising corn or flour to an upper storey; meal = flour used for baking brown bread; float = low-bodied cart for carrying heavy articles
phonology
H-dropping; rhoticity
NURSE [@`:]; PRICE [VI ~ OI]; STRUT [U ~ V]; LOT [A]; MOUTH [EU]; NORTH [A: > O`:]; lettER [@`]
® [TINk]; ® [di]; ® [A:L/]
note also far [fV`:], here [I@`], hundred [Vndr/@d ~ Vnd@`:d], vegetables [vEdZIt@b=L/z], potatOES [p@tEIt@z], one [wOn], year [j@`:], improvement [Impr/u:vmEnt], half [a:f], wagon [wagIn], our [@`:], because [bIkOz], Stourport [st{@pO`:t], boy [bQI] and gallon [gal@nd]
grammar
zero plural marker on nouns (400 acre; 150 acre; ten year; ten or twelve pound a week; twenty-five shilling)
(I think today they’re a-farming about 400 acre)
zero indefinite article (cut it with _ hayknife; they’ve got to have _ elevator)
third person singular do + negative particle ® don’t (it don’t make sense)
preterite drunk (I don’t know whether I drunk the lot)
preterite done (I don’t think we done too bad; we done remarkable well)
adjective as adverb (I don’t think we done too bad; we didn’t do bad at all; we done remarkable well; how many is there today as can afford to go across and have a pint of beer regular?)
third person plural was (they say they was bad old days)
relative pronoun ® as (how many is there today as can afford to go across and have a pint of beer regular?)
Note the constructions we’d used to have to get the manure out of the fold-yard with a fork, Saturday we’d used to finish at five, Sunday we’d used to start at seven and this was home-brewed that we’d used to have = we used to …. Note also the construction what should I be? = what would I be? | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Source: | Collect Britain | Creator: | University of Leeds | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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