Dialect in British Fiction: 1800-1836Funded by The Arts and Humanities Research CouncilSupported by The University of Sheffield
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Currently displaying 31 - 40 of 1101 records    |    Previous 10 records    |    Next 10 records    |    Order results by: Publication Year ~ Novel Title
31
Unknown Author (1828)
Courtship; Didactic / Moralising; Satirical; Two unspecified villages on the coast and the interior of Ireland;
Dialect Speakers
2. narrator
Speakers: All , Nancy, narrator
In a short time, an elderly woman, who had been standing at the grave, rushed through the crowd, and throwing herself on her knees, clasped her arms about Edmund. Setting up a wild cry, in wihch she was joined by all the other keeners present, who accompanied her in a kind of mounrful recitative, perculiar I believe to the lamentation of the Irish, she addressed Edmund thus:
" Arra cushla-ma-chree , is it yourself that's there, stretched on the corp of your own dear father; och , och , its a black day for you a vourneen , and for us all. Look up, jewel, and see who's by you, acushla , one that loves the ground you walk on; that nursed you at her own breast and gave you the veins of her heart to feed on. Oh! lanna , lanna , never more will the eye of father and mother smile upon you: they lie low, that lov'd you, a-cushla , as never child was lov'd . Silent and low do they lie -- and knows not that the pride of their eyes is bent over them in sorrow; but now without father, without mother, -- friend or brother; for my darlin' , I doubt you'll hardly find the welcome of a brother from them that ought to give it to you.
32
Unknown Author (1828)
Courtship; Didactic / Moralising; Satirical; Two unspecified villages on the coast and the interior of Ireland;
Dialect Speakers
2. interlocutor
Speakers: All , Nancy, interlocutor
" Well , a-cushla ," said she, "after I was wid you yesterday, I had a little business wid Father Luke, and went to his house."
"And pray," interrupted Edmund, "did your business in any way relate to me?" for it just occurred to him that she was prompted by some person to teize him about the old subject, and he suspected the priest.
"Yes, to be sure , jewel," answered she; but after a moment's pause, added, "No, dear, I'm raving, it was all my own business. So as I was telling you, I came here, and the night being dark an' stormy, Father Luke, God bless him, would not let me go home, and I went to bed purty soon, for I was tired."
"What has all this to do with me?" again interrupted Edmund.
" Asy yet, honey, have a little patience and you'll hear all. So, dear, I don't know how long I was asleep, I think it was far in the night, when I felt something stir me in the bed, I opened my eyes, but och! my jewel, how will I tell what I seen , the holy Virgin save me --"
She paused, gasping for breath. Edmund here remarked, it was impossible she could see in the dark.
" Sure , dear," resumed she, "there was a trifle of light in the room from the moon. Och! it's a wonder the life was'nt frightened out of me, but any way, I'm kilt ."
"What did you see?" exclaimed Edmund, out of patience.
" That's what I'm after going to tell you , dear. Well sorra pater or ave could myself say; there was up close to the bed, a thing as tall as the room, all in white, like a corp ; well , dear, the could water was powerin' off me, when I heard the thing call me, Nancy -- Nancy -- Nancy -- three times, telling me it was your father, God rest his sowl ; in a minit I could speak, and I axed what troubled him, or brought him back again."
33
Unknown Author (1828)
Courtship; Didactic / Moralising; Satirical; Two unspecified villages on the coast and the interior of Ireland;
Dialect Speakers
2. interlocutor
3. narrator
Next morning, she went to the Parsonage, and had a long interview with Edmund, exerting all her eloquence to forward the priest's views, but in vain. O'Hara declared he would neither go to his brother's, nor Father Luke's.
"And dear jewel?," said nurse, "when will you be made a priest? for you know, that's what your dear father, Lord receive him, wished you to be."
"I will never enter the Church, nurse," replied Edmund.
After a few of her usual crossings and exclamations, she asked what he meant to do. He said he could not tell at present, that he had formed no plan of life yet.
"But sure , a-cushla , you're not going to turn?"
"What do you mean nurse?"
" Sure you would'nt leave the true Church, jewel?"
"And what if I did? in my opinion one Church is as true as another."
"God forgive you, dear, for saying that, any way; sure there's but the one true Church, and that's our own, a-vourneen ."
"Nonsense, nurse, don't believe this, one sort will go to heaven, as soon as another."
34
Unknown Author (1828)
Courtship; Didactic / Moralising; Satirical; Two unspecified villages on the coast and the interior of Ireland;
Dialect Speakers
1. 1828:03:narrator
2. narrator
The Priest, exasperated beyond all patience, denounced the vengeance of the church against Tom, in the hearing of every one present, and refused to partake of the dinner prepared for the occasion, to Molly's great dismay; for in her anxiety to make much of the Priest, she had killed the fattest goose and turkey, with sundry other fowls, to furnish the dinner, and declared she had in the house as good a drop of the crathur as any body need wish to drink, with raal white sugar, to make punch for his raverence , and now was'nt it a poor case, after all the cost she went to, that he would'nt stay; but sure what could the gentleman do when Tom went agin him, and affronted him.
She then set up the Irish cry, lamenting her hard fate, with many appropriate ejaculations.
35
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
Speakers: All , Lady Dorimon
"Molly, indeed!" said my lady, "Please, Sir Philip, when you speak to me, to call me my lady, or Lady Dorimon; if you doesn't know manners, I must larn them you. I always calls you Sir Philip; and I don't look vell , Sir Philip, besides, Sir Philip, if I do, Sir Philip, I've an inward complaint."
(Vol. 1,p. 35-6)
36
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
2. interlocutor
Lady Dorimon did not appear in very good humour; she threw herself down on the chair the Captain drew for her, and told him she was wastly sorry that she had discommodicated him, as she had only called to ax Mrs. Clarkson how she did, and have a bit of a chat with her; "for you knows " Sir, added she, " vomen generally likes to open their minds to one another; howsomever , I will leave my tickut , and take my leave."
"I expect her every minute," said Littleframe, "if your ladyship would like to wait a little."
"O dear no, I thank ye , replied she, coldly, "I has got to go, and call this morning on some of my rich city acquaintances; we, in the city, has the money after all, Captain Littleframe."
[Littleframe's dialogue omitted]
"Ah! lawk !" interrupted her polite ladyship, "what " sennifies " considering? when one can't get this vealth ! I declares , Sir Philip makes me sick with his considering ; and that wulgar expression, I'll consider of it , I tells him, is for ever and amen in his mouth."
"And yet, my lady," said Littleframe, with a smile, "people of very high consequence are very apt to make use of that expression."
"Why, lawk ! you don't say so?" said Lady Dorimon, "see how a title natterally makes one feel one's consequence! I declares , Sir Philip scarce ever used to use that expression afore he was knighted. Well , I really does'nt know whether there does'nt sound something grand in saying, " I'll consider of it ." Well , I must be off, and get into my baroutch again directly. So I wishes you a good morning, Sir. Now I'll just tell you, I means to make up a match with your brother officer --"
(Vol. 1,p. 51-4)
37
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
2. interlocutor
" Lawk ! good voman , you railly frighted me! vhy vhat if it is such a pulbeaun hour?" "But three is the hour at which we always dine; and my father on no account will sit down to a table without me, unless he knows I am gone to dine out." "Well, then," said Lady Dorimon, "you had better, ma'am , get out here, and I shall go home to Pemlico ; you lives in such a hout of the way place, that railly you must quite excuse my coming to call on you so often as I used to; for we lives almost close to the pallis , as it's a purdigious distance to drive for a morning call."
(Vol. 1,p. 62)
38
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
Dialect Features:Metalanguage

Extract #1 dialect features: Metalanguage
Speakers: All , Mr Clarkson
"Now, there is a book," said her father, "which I cannot endure; how can any one pretend to comment on Shakespeare, that favourite child of nature, who breathed her language, in all its simplicity, though at the same time he embellished it with the beauty of his charming and elegant ideas: yet the transparent covering still shews the charms of the goddess. Those comments, and pretended elucidations, only serve to lead the reader astray; and the man, who has never quitted the two Universities, or even the smoky walls of a London dwelling, will affect to explain passages which he called obscure in Shakespeare, and thereby do away with all their original beauty; a common villager of Warwickshire or Staffordshire will easily comprehend the language of Shakespeare; for Shakespeare, in some words, is very provincial; notwithstanding, I look upon him to be an excellent scholar, and one of the best historians of the age he lived in."
(Vol. 1,p. 177-79)
39
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
Extract #1 dialect features: Grammar, Idiom, Orthographical Respelling, Vocabulary
Speakers: All , Mr Scrimp
Mrs. Cameron endeavoured, at this dinner, to make herself particularly amiable; she even tried to throw as much softness as possible into her fierce and anxious eye; and she played off all the artillery of her charms against the invulnerable heart of Mr. Scrimp; but when the governess heard him say he would never marry a widow, else he was very nigh marrying a widow woman as kept a boarding-school once, but he could not abide them there cross school misseses . Indeed, he never meant, he said, again to take that expensive piece of goods , a wife; but dang it, if he ever did, it should be a nice, pretty young girl; for he would neither have a frowsy old maid nor a widow, who would be always talking of her first husband; "besides," added he, "widows are knowing articles; I know better than to let sitch manage me."
(Vol. 2,p. 27)
40
Unknown Author (1812)
Anecdotal; Courtship; London; Madeira;
Dialect Speakers
Dialect Features:Metalanguage

Extract #1 dialect features: Metalanguage
Lady Dorimon is still the finest drest lady at all the city feasts; and her new liveries and new carriage for the Lady Mayoress's rout, (where there is always room, as she tells every one, for her and Sir Philip) are the general theme of conversation, both East and West of Temple Bar. She talks as much as ever; but as we daily get forward in the refinements of language, she renders a glossary requisite for the greater part of her hearers to understand her conversation,
(Vol. 3,p. 210)
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Version 1.1 (December 2015)Background image reproduced from the Database of Mid Victorian Illustration (DMVI)