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Thursday, May 21, 2015

OD&D - Old Forgotten English Words - 011

Continuing the list of olde archaic words for your enjoyment and enlightenment:

Riding the hatch - In the district about the Land's End, a custom once prevailed known as riding the hatch. Persons suspected of immorality were mounted on the half-door (a Dutch door), which was then violently rocked until they fell off. If the accused fell into the house, he was judged to be innocent; if into the street, guilty.

Keak - A distortion or injury of the spine that causes deformity. It seems to have some affinity with the Cheshire word kench . . .  "a twist or wrench, a strain or sprain." Our term, however, is never used but for a wrench in the spine.

Curglaff - the shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water; hence curgloff, panic struck.

Box harry - To live in a poor manner, or on credit. To go without food; to make a poor or coarse meal; to rough it; to take things as they are . . . Hence Boxharry-week, the blank week between pay-weeks when the workmen lived on credit or starved.

The phrase "to box Harry" probably means to box or fight, the devil.

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