Words, don't you love them? Tricia McGill.

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Words have always fascinated me. Probably a good thing as I am a writer. But it’s the peculiarities that are the best part. I have a friend who often calls me and says, “I found a good word today.” He will then expect me to look up that word and find out its meaning. This likely stems from him having young grandkids. But it gets me searching anyway. One was ‘obsequies’ I had no idea this was a word for funeral rites. Some might know this one, but I didn’t, ‘strobilus’ (cone of a conifer).

I don’t know if anybody else does this; but I often watch the lips of a newsreader or an actor and am amazed at the way we can understand what someone is saying by sounds emerging from their mouths. It’s especially amusing to me when they have a certain funny way of pronouncing some words or their mouth twists in an odd way. Probably a stupid habit, but one that gives me a moment’s enjoyment. This is the odd thing about us humans—the way we can understand a fellow human by the words they say. That’s providing they are speaking in a language we understand. I was lucky, as I had a lot of older siblings as well as my parents to teach me the fundamentals.

Another thing I often ponder over is the difference between English speaking countries in our spelling of words. So, who was the first American who decided it was okay to leave the u out of colour, endeavour, and humour, etc. or decided it was a good idea to add a z in words like realise to replace the s, or spell metre as meter? I’m not knocking it, but just wondering how it began. Who first called the boot of a car the trunk, and who decided that pants were not undergarments but trousers? And here’s a funny one, we called an eraser a rubber at school, but guess what the Americans call a rubber? Americans go on vacation but I go on holiday.

When I arrived in Australia and went to my first job here as a pattern cutter in a clothing factory someone asked me to pass the Durex. Well, that floored me as she meant the Sellotape, and we knew Durex as something totally different back in London where we came from.

My friend was telling me how she met an obvious newcomer to our country while at the Post Office. This lady was having trouble filling out a form. She wanted to put an n on the end of Australia and my friend had to explain to her that, no, only when you become an Australian citizen do you put that n there. I always have the greatest sympathy for migrants, and am glad I was taught English from the moment I could speak. Imagine how strange our language must be to newcomers. We often hear people criticise them and say, “They should learn our language before they are allowed in.” But just take a wander through the dictionary and you are aware what a treacherous path it is. Just think of a word like rain or reign or rein for a start. Then take a simple word like kind. It has more than one meaning; I just bought a new kind of chair or that man was so kind to me when I needed help. I will never ridicule someone who endeavours to find their way around the English language.

Because I was born and bred in North London I have a totally different vocabulary to someone we consider as posh; you know them, they speak like a member of the royal family. My mother was a great one for sayings. Half the time I doubt she knew what they meant and it wasn’t until I was old enough to visit the library and start my passion for books that I learned what some of them meant. One of her favourites was, “Look at you, you’re as black as Newgate’s knocker,” when I came in a bit grubby from playing. I found out that Newgate Jail was a vile place in London where no self-respecting soul wanted to go through that black door with the iron knocker on it. There are other meanings for this saying but that is the one she meant. Another of her best was, “They are as different as chalk from cheese.” That one is self-explanatory. My brothers, who were a lot older than me, used Cockney slang. Their favourites; Apples and Pears (Stairs) Butcher’s Hook (Look) Trouble and Strife (Wife) and Use your loaf (Bread, meaning Head) Even my husband, also the youngest in his family, used most of those.

Then, when we arrived in Australia, we had to learn new words, such as ‘cobber’ meaning mate or friend, crook meaning sick or poorly, etc. A lot of these ‘Strine’ words have faded from fashion and are rarely used these days, which is a shame. We also found that Aussies had a nickname for everyone, more so than us English, and had a unique way of shortening every word. I guess you’ve heard of ‘budgie smugglers’ a term used for those skimpy figure hugging swimmers, or bathers as some call them. We were heading off to Queensland and so were going ‘troppo’ because it’s classed as the tropics. If you are going way out into the bush you are going ‘back of Bourke’. Have you seen the movie 'They're a Weird Mob'? It's a story about a young Italian, Nino, who arrived here and was asked at the pub to 'Shout' his workmates a beer. He had no idea that they meant it was his turn to buy a round of drinks and wondered just why he was asked to shout when he thought that impolite.

Another good friend of mine loved creating his own limericks and would recite one at the drop of a hat, so to finish up I’d like to quote a couple of my favourite limericks for no other reason than I like them. I’ve picked out the cleaner ones, as there is no doubt some limericks can be crude. These are taken from a quaint little book called The Lure of The Limerick-an uninhibited history (W. S. Baring-Gould).

“A lisping young lady named Beth

Was saved from a fate worse than death

Seven times in a row,

Which unsettled her so,

That she quit saying ‘No’ and said ‘Yeath.” (Cosmo Monkhouse)

“There was a young lady of Twickenham

Whose shoes were too tight to walk quick in ‘em,

She came back from a walk

Looking whiter than chalk

And took ‘em both off and was sick in ‘em.” (Oliver Herford)

Note: There are a number of red lines beneath words in this post. As you can guess, the dictionary wasn't happy with how I spelt some of the words. (Apologies, I am an Aussie after all) 
 

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Remnants of the Past: Songs of the Slaves

I have always been fascinated by the Civil War: what caused it, why were the differences in philosophies so great, so important, that they literally forced brother to fight against brother. The greatest emphasis, of course, was always on the issue of slavery and the rights, or non-rights, of people of color to be free.

I began my historical novel for kids, The Freedom Thief, in 2008, and with every intention of the focus of the story being on the Underground Railroad. But between 2008 and when the novel was released in 2015, it had changed a great deal. I think that happens to a lot of writers...what starts out as one story ends up being another one entirely.

Nevertheless, when my husband and I took our historic barge trip...yes, on a real barge...down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, for research on Thief, my ideas about the story focusing on the Underground Railroad were still in place.

Was the Underground Railroad a real railroad? Well, of course, it wasn't. There are several theories as to why the escape routes of fleeing slaves came to be called that, but the one most historians use is this: Tice Davis was an escaping slave, fleeing from a plantation in Kentucky. Slave hunters were hot on his heels. When he came to the Ohio River, he dove in and managed to swim across. This was quite a feat, as the Ohio has never been known to be quiet enough for people to swim in. Once on the other side, Tice ran into the woods, and vanished. He was never seen again. When the slave hunters reached the other side of the Ohio, there was no indication of Tice ever having been there, or gone into the woods. No footprints in the sand coming out of the river. Not a single broken tree branch, not a single stepped upon weed. The forest was pristine. It was as though no one had ever been there. One of the slave hunters was heard to say, "It's as if he disappeared into some underground railroad."

When the slave hunters returned home and told their tale, the term "underground railroad" caught on. From that day forward, the Quakers and Abolitionists who helped escaping slaves used that name for their secret network.

An important part of the Underground Railroad was the songs the slaves sang. Supposedly hymns, each one carried an important message that helped the slaves in planning their escapes. Perhaps the most famous of these is Follow the Drinking Gourd. This refers to the Big Dipper and its gourd-like shape. When the sun comes back, and the first quail calls, follow the drinking gourd. This sentence tells the slaves to begin their journey around the Winter Solstice, and to follow the drinking gourd. The "pointer" star on this constellation points almost directly north. Winter was the best time for escape, as most slaves needed to cross the Ohio River, and in the winter time, the river froze over, so escaping across the ice was much easier than trying to swim across, or even trying to steal a boat and row across.

The second part of the song was: The river bank makes a mighty fine road. Dead trees show you the way. And it's left foot, peg foot, traveling on. "Dead trees show you the way" because moss on a dead tree only grows on the north side. The river bank referred to the Tombigbee River, which began in Tennessee and flowed all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Dead trees were littered all along those banks, and on several of them, slaves had made left foot prints and peg foot prints to show others this was the right river. Following it to the north would lead them to the Ohio River.

Another important song that played a part in the Underground Railroad was Go Down Moses. The African American community has  always known the story of Moses, and in the days of slavery felt that his story echoed their own. This was a song that the slaves could sing in front of their masters, and only they would know the truth of it. In the lyrics: Go down Moses, go down Moses, Way down in Egypt's Land, and tell old Pharaoh to let my people go. Let my people go, let my people go to the Promised land, there were code words for the slaves.

Moses was the Underground Railroad conductor who would help them get to freedom, and often this was either Harriet Tubman or John Brown. Egypt's Land referred to slavery and bondage, and the Pharaoh was the slave owner. The Promised Land was, of course, wherever freedom lay.

Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus. Steal away, steal away steal away home, 'cause I ain't got long to stay here, was another Sunday hymn that meant considerably more than what the slave owners thought. It meant that the person or persons singing it were planning an escape, and soon. It meant that plans had already been made. Sometimes it meant that others in the group could join in the escape, and sometimes it meant the time was not yet right and those not already in the plan should wait until it was safer. How the slaves knew exactly which of these was right, no one except the slaves themselves ever seemed to know.

This has been a long post, and I hope not too boring. Next month I'll tell you about some of the safe houses we visited on that barge trip, and some of the ways in which slaves were transported from one safe place to another. I spent a little time in some of those 'modes' of travel, and all I can say is, I'm sure glad I didn't have to be in any one for very long!

 

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The English Domestic Servant, by Diane Scott Lewis

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In the eighteenth century, a time when domestic service was seen as easier than toiling in a shop or factory, a poor farmer’s sons and daughters would go happily into this type of work. Even a parson’s family did not look down on the occupation.

However, the English domestics thought of themselves as a cut above.
The English servant was quite independent and rarely satisfied with low wages. Instead of being content in the early part of the century with £2 a year, they were demanding as much as £6 and £8. Writer Daniel Defoe wanted to see wages fixed at no more than £5, or soon this rabble would insist on as much as £20.

Lord Fermanagh, when writing to a friend about his butler, who had the audacity to ask for £10, said: “I would have a sightly fellow and one that has had the smallpox, and an honest man, for he is entrusted with store of plate, and can shave, but I will give no such wages as this.”

The English servant stood up for himself, giving notice or running away if ill-treated. One servant, after being struck by his master, turned on the man and killed him with a pitchfork.

Foreigners were amazed—since they treated their servants like slaves—to see a nobleman like Lord Ferrers hanged in 1760 for the murder of his steward.

In the earlier part of the century there was a scarcity of women servants, but later, after years of bad harvests, starvation sent many girls into service. One lady, upon advertising for another housemaid, had over 200 applicants.
If wages were low, servants in a large house could supplement their pay with vails (tips). One foreigner complained after dining with a friend at his home: “You’ll find all the servants drawn up in the passage like a file of musqueteers from the house steward, down to the lowest liveried servant, and each of them holds out his hand to you in as deliberate a manner as the servants in our inns on the like occasion.”

One clergyman reported that when he dined with his Bishop, he spent more in vails than would have fed his family for a week.
At lease the Duke of Ormonde, when inviting a poor relation to dine, always sent him a guinea ahead of time for the vails.
A movement, rumored to have started in Scotland, was put forth to abolish vails (tips) but nothing came of it.

If servants believed themselves independent, striving for respect, their employers often demanded too much from them for little pay. Mrs. Purefoy advertised for a coachman, who can not only drive four horses, but must understand husbandry business and cattle, plus he’d also be expected to plough. She also required a footman who could “work in the garden, lay the cloth, wait at table, go to the cart with Thomas, and do any other business that he is ordered to do and not too large sized a man, that he may not be too great a load for the horse when he rides.”

Servants were derided by their “betters” as being lazy and selfish, especially when they’d leave their positions for higher wages and vails.

Of course, many servants during the eighteenth century—especially in the larger towns and cities—were mistreated and far underpaid, if paid at all.

Still, some servants were honored and treated as members of the family, as shown by this epitaph on a coachman’s headstone: Coachman the foe to drink and heart sincere; Of manners gentle and of judgment clear; Safe through the chequered track of life he drove; And gained the treasure of his master’s love...

To learn more about Diane's eighteenth-century novels, please visit her website:
http://www.dianescottlewis.org

Source: English Country Life in the Eighteenth Century, by Rosamond Bayne-Powell, 1937