spoke.

Oa at the beginning of a word becomes wu, as wuts, oats.

Oi in noise and rejoice is sounded as ai.

In ointment and spoil it becomes ī or wī, giving intment and spile or spwile.

Ow takes the sound of er or y, in some form or other, as vollur and volly, to follow, winder and windy, a window.

U in such words as fusty and dust becomes ow, as fowsty, dowst.

D when preceded by a liquid is often dropped, as veel', field, vine, to find, dreshol, threshold, groun', ground.

Conversely, it is added to such words as miller, gown, swoon, which become millard, gownd, and zownd.

In orchard and Richard the d becomes t, giving us archet and Richut or Rich't; while occasionally t becomes d, linnet being formerly (but not now) thus pronounced as linnard in N. Wilts.

D is dropped when it follows n, in such cases as Swinnun, Swindon, Lunnon, London.

Su sometimes becomes Shu, as Shusan, Susan, shoot, suit, shewut, suet, shower, sure, Shukey, Sukey.

Y is used as an aspirate in yacker, acre, yarm, arm, yeppern, apron, yerriwig, earwig. It takes the place of h in yeäd, head, yeldin, a hilding; and of g in yeat or yat, a gate.

Consonants are often substituted, chimney becoming chimbley or chimley, parsnip, pasmet, and turnip, turmut.

Transpositions are very common, many of them of course representing the older form of a word. For examples we may take ax, to ask, apern, apron, girt, great, wopse, wasp, aps, the aspen, claps, to clasp, cruds, curds, childern, children.

F almost invariably becomes v, as vlower, flower, vox, fox, vur, far, vall, fall, vlick, flick, vant, font.

In such words as afterclaps and afternoon it is not sounded at all.

L is not sounded in such words as amwoast, almost, and a'mighty, almighty.

N final is occasionally dropped, as lime-kill, lime-kiln.

P, F, V, and B are frequently interchanged, brevet and privet being forms of the same word, while to bag peas becomes fag or vag when applied to wheat.

R is slurred over in many cases, as e'ath, earth, foc'd, forced, ma'sh, marsh, vwo'th, forth.

It often assumes an excrescent d or t, as cavaltry, horsemen, crockerty, crockery, scholard, scholar.

H has the sound of wh in whoam, home. This word, however, as Mr. Slow points out in the Preface to his Glossary—

Bob. Drat if I dwon't goo wom to marrer.

Zam. Wat's evir waant ta go wimm var.

Bob. Why, they tell's I as ow Bet Stingymir is gwain to be caal'd whoam to Jim Spritely on Zundy.—

is variously pronounced as wom, wimm, and whoam, even in the same village.

As stated at page 72, the cockney misuse of h is essentially foreign to our dialect. It was virtually unknown sixty or seventy years ago, and even so late as thirty years back was still unusual in our villages. Hunked for unked is almost the only instance to be found in Akerman, for instance. But the plague is already fast spreading, and we fear that the Catullus of the next generation will have to liken the Hodge of his day to the Arrius (the Roman 'Arry) of old:—

Touching this point the Rev. G. Hill writes us from Harnham Vicarage as follows:—'I should like to bear out what you say with regard to the use of the letter h in South-West Wilts. When I lived in these parts twenty years ago, its omission was not I think frequent. The putting it where it ought not to be did not I think exist. I find now that the h is invariably dropped, and occasionally added, the latter habit being that of the better educated.'

H becomes y in yeäd, head.

K is often converted into t, as ast, to ask, mast, a mask, bleat, bleak.

T is conversely often replaced by k, as masking, acorn-gathering, from 'mast,' while sleet becomes sleek, and pant, pank.

S usually takes the sound of z, as zee, to see, zaa, a saw, zowl, soul, zaat or zate, soft, zider, cider, zound, to swoon.

Thr usually becomes dr, as dree, three, droo, through, draish, to thrash.

In afurst, athirst, and fust, thirst, we still retain a very ancient characteristic of Southern English.

T is always dropped in such words as kept and slept, which become kep' and slep'.

Liquids sometimes drop the next letter, as kill, kiln; but more usually take an excrescent t or d, as varmint, vermin, steart, a steer, gownd, gown.

W as an initial is generally dropped in N. Wilts in such cases as 'oont, a want or mole, 'ooman, woman, 'ood, wood.

Occasionally in S. Wilts it takes the aspirate, 'ood being then hood.

Final g is always dropped in the present participle, as singin', livin', living; also in nouns of more than one syllable which end in ing. It is, however, retained in monosyllabic nouns and verbs, such as ring and sing.

Pre becomes pur, as purtend, pretend, purserve, preserve.

Sometimes a monosyllabic word will be pronounced as a dissyllable, as we have already mentioned, ne-um, ve-ut, ve-us, and ke-up being used concurrently with naayme, vit or fit, veäce, and kip or keep.

The prefix a is always used with the present participle, as a-gwain', going, a-zettin' up, sitting up.

The article an is never used, a doing duty on all occasions, as 'Gie I a apple, veyther.'

Plurals will be found to be dealt with in the Glossary itself, under En and Plurals.

Pronouns will also be found grouped together under Pronouns.

As is used for who,