A SHEEP-STATION GLOSSARY

* ISI'fXULI.V WRITTEN FOR TffE [TJ'.SS.j I rjy 1.. 0. U. ACJ..AMM Introduction —By Professor A. Wall. j A standard language is an artifiI cial thing and represents only the j uppermost layer or stratum of the I whole. Colloquialisms, slang, and I regional or provincial strata lie bei neath, and among those the new dei velopments of the English language, j found wherever the British race lias ! settled, form a most interesting ex- ' ample. A full study of this stratum j as represented in "Australasia" was j prepared by Professor Morris, of Melbourne, and published as "Austral English" in IG9B. Mr Acland's , Glossary, or list of local words and idioms, may be regarded as supplementary to this, and it is to be hoped that as a result of its publication here others will follow, so that a complete glossary for the whole of New Zealand may be compiled, not necessarily confined, as this one is almost entirely, to the major industry of the sheep station. Glossaries of this kind are not only interesting in themselves, especially to the residents of the country, but they have also great value for the linguistic student. Such glossaries have been compiled in England and Scotland since about 1670, chiefly, of course, dealing with words and phrases of local occurrence, and during the nineteenth century every provincial dialect of the Old Land was thus put on record, the whole being ultimately combined in the monumental "English Dialect Dictionary," edited by Dr. Joseph Wright and published by the Clarendon Press early in this century. Mr Acland's long association with the pastoral industry in Canterbury and Otago, and that of his family, have given him exceptional opportunities, and the present work shows that he has taken full advantage of them, bringing to his task not only a long and wide experience, but also an enquiring mind, a retentive memory, and a lively sense of nuAm'ong the many difficulties which beset the compiler of a list of this sort one of the greatest is to determine exactly where to draw the line, what to exclude, for instance, on the ground of "universality," or of triviality. It is impossible, of course, entirely to exclude words and idioms which occur elsewhere, either in Australia or America, or the Old Land, and Mr Acland's list includes, quite properly, a number of these which have become familiar to most residents in this country, while they are only known at Home to those actually engaged in a certain industry. In some of the more important cases of this kind a few notes have been added by myself and these are enclosed in [ ] and signed with my initials. When we look at the list as a whole we see that the words and idioms naturally fall into certain more or less well defined main classes. U) Technical terms of the pastoral industry. (a) Names indicative of the age, sex, etc., of sheep: teg, rigg, hogget. (See the note on ages of sheep.) These are generally in use in the Old Country, but not so familiar there as they often become here. (b) Terms of the wool shed: cobbler, ringer, fleecy, etc. Names of different parts of shears: bow, heel, knocker, etc. i'c) Dog terms: Names for different sorts of dogs (see sheep l!ot\ "Working" terms: head, slew, skite, pull. <d> Saleyard and auction terms: run off, clip. Ie) Terms of land tenure and their kin: station, run, agistment, dummy. (f) Names of buildings or their parts: skillion, futtah, V hut. (g) Special terms for the wool itself: breech, dags. (h) Machines or contrivances: jenny. gamble, kitt. I do not think that I words of this claf" nave ever been so fully and accurately defined as they are here. (2) Words relating to cattle rather than sheep, a comparatively small class: bullocky, polers; parts of the stockwhip (see stockwhip). (3) Names for various features of back-country landscape and weather: fan, shingle-slip; barber, skiff, nor'wester. (4) Names of plants, birds, etc., familiar to shepherds: cotton plant, biddy-biddy, tea-tree; kea, bell-bird. (5) Names of articles of food and utensils: tommy, brownie, doughboy, billy, camp-oven. The following classes are arranged according to origins:— (6) Australian colloquialisms and slang: dingbats, Jimmy Woodser, jumbuck. (7) English slang, sometimes modified in form or exact sense: tucker, chop, snob. It is always possible that a word of this class may survive here when it has perished in the Old Land, as has happened in America. (8) Sailors' terms: bunk, chips, slushy. , „, , Many sailors in the early days took to the land," and every settler had made at least one voyage in a ship. (9) Standard English words used in a deflected sense: creek, snob, paddock. Sometimes the modification originates first in America (creek, gully), sometimes in Australia (mob, paddock). (10 Maori words, either corrupted or not: futtah, biddy-bid, whare. Station life has changed much in the last 80 years, and is still changing; it is not surprising, therefore, that some of the words and idioms recorded in Mr Acland's list have become obsolete already. It is a good thing that they should be rescued from the complete oblivion -which would be their lot if they did not happen to occur in any of our early classics, like the books of Butler, Potts, and Lady Barker. Finally, Mr Acland is to be warmly congratulated on the work that he has done in compiling this glossary, by which he has earned the gratitude of all those who are interested j in the early history of the province and of many students of English in other provinces and other lands. It . : s greatly to be desired that this author should now write a general account of that station life of the early days which is so rapidly passing away—a task which no one now living is better qualified to perform! than he. ] Author's Note In the following list I .have tried to put down all the technical, local, and slang words used on the Canterbury stations. I daresay not more than 20 of them are strictly confined to the province. When Canterbury was first stocked, most of the few runholders and managers who knew their business came either from Scotland or Australia, so that most of our technical words come either from Scotland or Australia also. Musterers and shearers

are naturally wanderers and so, to a less extent, are squatters and nil station hands, so that the words used in Canterbury are carried from one end of the island to the other. I have marked "lE." the words noted in Morris's "Austral English," and given references where I have found words used in books or newspapers. The other words (marked "C"). except where otherwise stated, I can myself remember in common use on certain South Canterbury stations between the years 1390 and 1910. I need hardly say that I shall be grateful to anyone who will send me corrections or additions to my list. The following books are referred to:— (S.L.l—"Station Life in New Zealand." By Lady Barker. New edition, London, .1874. (S. A.)— "Station Amusements in New Zealand." By Lady Barker. London, 1873. (Crusts)—" Crusts. A Settler's Fare due South.'' by Laurence J. Kennaway. London, 1874. i (Paul) —"Letters from Canterbury, New Zealand." By Robert Bateman Paul. M.A., Archdeacon of Waimea. London, 1857. (F.Y.i—"A First Year in Canterbury Settlement." By Samuel Butler. Second edition, London, 1914. I Accommodation House.—Country inn. In old days they were licensed to sell intoxicating liquor. They usualJy had a few acres of Government land attached to them for the accommodation of travellers' horses and bullocks and the licensee's own domestic stock. The expression still survives for the Jordan Accommodation House on the Awatere and others. The best known in Canterbury were Main's (afterwards Weedon's). Giggs's on the Selwyn, Dunford's at the Rakaia. and Turton's at the Ashburton (F.Y., p. 30; S.L., p. 24). Accommodation Paddocks.—Paddocks kept by publicans and others for the use of travelling stock. In my time the charge was Is a hundred for sheep for a night. They were unknown, of course, until the roads were fenced in the 'seventies. (C.) Absentee.—An absentee landowner is one who lives in England, not one who lives elsewhere in New Zealand, or is on a visit abroad. The word came into great prominence during Seddon's premiership. In New Zealand it never had the sense given in lE., a convict. (C.) Ages of Sheep.—There are no definite rules governing the use of words defining the ages of sheep in Canterbury ; but the following names are usually applied. A sheep is a lamb until weaned. A male is a ram lamb until castrated, then a wether lamb. A female is a ewe lamb. After weaning a lamb becomes a (ram, etc.) hogget until shorn. After shearing he is usually called a shorn hogget until the next crop of lambs are weaned about th-2 time he gets his first two-teeth. He is then called a two-tooth. Some people, however, call him a twotooth as soon as he is shorn, whether his new teeth are up or not. Next year he is a four-tooth, next a six. and then an eight-tooth or full mouthed sheep. Strictly speaking an eight-tooth sheep is one whose fourth pair are rising and obviously new ; i.e., four to four and a-half years old on average country. He is full mouthed as long as his teeth remain perfect, and as they decline he becomes failing mouthed, broken mouthed, and finally a gummy. Stud sheep are usually sold in the autumn and are described by tha number of times they have been shorn, one shear for a two-tooth, etc. Dealers and stock-agents use | various terms, such as chisel- | mouthed, to make failing mouthed i sheep sound younger; but these I terms are not in common use by sheepfarmers or shepherds. Teg (an animal neither a sheep nor a lamb) is a frozen meat trade term in New Zealand (C, and Butler, F.Y., 2nd edition, p. 39.) Agistment.—Stock are on agistment when their owner grazes them on someone else's property during a shortage of feed or for any reason. The word has come into use in Canterbury since the war, from Australia, I think. (C, 1918.) [An old French la.v term, specially belonging to forest law—A.W.] As . . as a . . . —ldiomatic use of as to introduce a simile. Everyone uses these expressions. Among the best known are " As old as the hills," " as grey as a badger," " as like as two peas," " as bright as a new pin." Someone who is interested in colloquial English should make a collection of them. Two may possibly be Canterbury expressions : At least, I never heard them outside the province : (1) As rough as a bag. (2) As rough as a pig's breakfast. Back Country.—The country beyond the river gorges : for instance, Craigieburn and Mt. White are in the back country, Woodstock and Mt. Torlesse on the front-country. Two new-fangled literary expressions, out back and backblocks, are driving back-country out of newspaper use. "The out-back" was, I think, coined by the "Bulletin" writers, and "back-blocks" is from the North Island. (F.Y., p. 42.) Bank and Bank.—A river runs b. and b. when all the streams join into one ; i.e., when in high flood (F.Y., p. 73). Hence a banker. The expressions were probably introduced by the " shagroons." 2E gives a banker as meaning a river full to the top of its banks. New Zealand rivers, of course, do not get as full as that. (lE.) Basin.—Open valley near the top of a hill; all the very highest tops of a run are sometimes called "the basins." (C.) Bell-bird.—Mako-mako, or Mokimok (Anthornis melanura). The name is still sometimes used; but the bird is now generally called a " Mokky." (S.L., p. 93 ; lE.) Bell-bottomed Trousers.—Trousers tight on the leg and wide over the boot (like a bluejacket's) worn by the Christchurch larrikins and also by flash young station hands. I have not seen them since the early 'nineties. (lE.) Belly.—(1) The thick part of the lash of a stock whip, towards the middle. (C). (2) the wool off a sheep's bellv, pressed and sold as " bellies." (C.) Beardic, or bearded Collie.—A variety of sheep dog with very long hair, something like a Skye terrier's. (C.) Biddy-biddy, Biddy-bid, or Biddy. —Various species of Acaena. A burr, very harmful to wool when seeding. The name is a corruption of tho Maori word piri-piri. (lE.) (To be Continued.)