6 MARCH 1942, Page 14

Rural Speech At these threshings and in conversation with country

folk, I happen to have come across an unusual number of purely rural words. What would a townsman make of the following list, if asked in an examini- don to explain them:

Brummock Beevers Peikle Fagging hook Chats Cade lamb Chubber Cavings Bail Bag Molly

The list is made up wholly of words that I have heard during the last week or two. The country labourer is said to. exist on some five hundred words and his class is ignorant of many words that most other people use commonly and without thought. For example the wife of one of them was discovered the other day to be wholl ignorant of the meaning of " disobedient," which had been applied to her child. At the same time they have quite a number of words obscure to the learned and often use a gloriously Saxon idiom