Re: [scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
Nigel Gatherer wrote: David Kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [re mickle/muckle/pickle] Nigel, I thought this was an error too, but see Yorkshire/Cumbrian etc. Mickle means small...I don't think pickle got changed to mickle, I think mickle has been in Scotland as long as it's been in the north of England... See? It's aye dangerous fir me to pretend I ken aboot somethin, 'cause I'll be fun' oot eventually. (I run to have a quick look in "The Concise Scots Dictionary"...) Well there's only one entry for "mickle", and that says "see MUCKLE". Under "muckle", every definition is to do with largeness, although they do quote my saying, but with mickle, not pickle. My source for the "pickle" version was a hugely knowledgable friend, now dead unfortunately, so I can't shout at him. Instead I'll shout at the editors of The Concise... Various dictionaries I've got, especially American ones, say the same - they make the words identical. But that's not the usage I got from ordinary Yorkshire vernacular, and it's not what people *think* is correct in the Borders even though they don't use the 'mickle' word at all, only the other one. Our neighbours when I was growing up in Yorkshire were called Micklethwaite and said their name meant 'little lake'. But then again, the word had no currency at all on its own - while 'muckle' is widely used for big in Yorks and N England generally. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
Since we're pretty much off the original subject anyway (Thanks Nigel for posting "Scott Skinner's Rocking Step;" it's a great tune and seems to me to fit the HD rocking step perfectly), can anyone help me make sense of the Scottish Country Dance title "The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow?" Tow I understand to be a fiber for spinning, rock a distaff, and pickle a small quantity of grain, but how does this fit together? -- Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Concord, CA Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html"The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow" "Pickle" is still in common usage in many parts of Scotland, but now simply means a small amount of anything, not just grain. Thus "The Rock and The Wee Pickle Tow" translates into standard English as "The Distaff and the small,small amount of flax or hemp in a prepared state". This demonstrates how dull standard English is -- AY STAN Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
Nigel Gatherer wrote: stan reeves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "Pickle" is still in common usage in many parts of Scotland, but now simply means a small amount of anything, not just grain... Hi Stan. The old Scots saying "Mony a pickle maks a muckle" for some reason underwent a transformation over the years, and now many people say "Mony a MICKLE maks a muckle" instead, presumably not realising that the latter does not make any sense (mickle and muckle meaning the same). Nigel, I thought this was an error too, but see Yorkshire/Cumbrian etc. Mickle means small in common usage and in place names which are certainly older than any change likely to have affected a 'p'. Muckle is related to 'much' and mickle to a Germanic word which I seem to remember sounds a bit like, er, mickle. I don't think pickle got changed to mickle, I think mickle has been in Scotland as long as it's been in the north of England. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
Janice Hopper wrote: Well, no, it isn't. A rock is another word for distaff, the holder for the flax or wool that was being spun. From M-W.com Main Entry: 3rock Function: noun Etymology: Middle English roc, from Middle Dutch rocke; akin to Old High German rocko distaff Date: 14th century 1 : DISTAFF 2 : the wool or flax on a distaff Janice in Duluth, GA a spinster and proud of it Since we're pretty much off the original subject anyway (Thanks Nigel for posting "Scott Skinner's Rocking Step;" it's a great tune and seems to me to fit the HD rocking step perfectly), can anyone help me make sense of the Scottish Country Dance title "The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow?" Tow I understand to be a fiber for spinning, rock a distaff, and pickle a small quantity of grain, but how does this fit together? -- Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Concord, CA Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
At 04:48 AM 2/23/01 -0800, you wrote: Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 21:46:42 + From: David Kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [scots-l] Rocking Step Kate Dunlay or David Greenberg wrote: Talking of Scott Skinner, someone asked me for his tune "Scott Skinner's Rockin' Step"... The term is almost certainly a dancing reference, although in 18th century Scotland a "Rocking" was the Lowland equivalent of the Highland "ceilidh". That's interesting. I had always just assumed that the title referred to the Rocking Step of the Highland Fling. I would think the 'rocking' as a gathering of women comes from spinning - the 'rock' being just what it says, a stone used to weight the wool as it is hand-spin using gravity. Well, no, it isn't. A rock is another word for distaff, the holder for the flax or wool that was being spun. From M-W.com Main Entry: 3rock Function: noun Etymology: Middle English roc, from Middle Dutch rocke; akin to Old High German rocko distaff Date: 14th century 1 : DISTAFF 2 : the wool or flax on a distaff Janice in Duluth, GA a spinster and proud of it Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Correction to Rock re spinning
Janice Hopper wrote: Well, no, it isn't. A rock is another word for distaff, the holder for the flax or wool that was being spun. From M-W.com Main Entry: 3rock Function: noun Etymology: Middle English roc, from Middle Dutch rocke; akin to Old High German rocko distaff Date: 14th century 1 : DISTAFF 2 : the wool or flax on a distaff If so, then the Tweed Guild of Spinners and Weavers lady named it or demonstrated it incorrectly. Do you mean a holder for the wool being spun, or a holder on to which the wool is spun? When my wife spins, nothing holds the wool being spun apart from the her hands. It ends up on a holder after it has been spun, and the holder is nothing but a sort of spool off which you can push a ball of finished single ply spinning when it's full. What I've been shown literally did depend on using a weight, because I had a go myself, but I can't work out now how the finished yarn would be stored. As far as I work it out you could only do a yard at once go, which seems a bit pointless, but this was demonstrated as a sort of 'historic' thing - spinning without a wheel. If the 'rock' is a kind of stick - no idea what a 'distaff' looks like despite having a spinning wheel sitting in the house - then it might make a better weapon than a 'rock' in a misconstrued sense which I have picked up. It would also make sense of 'I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel, I'll even sell my spinning wheel' since it would be a made object of value (but wouldn't all these three be part of one thing?). It's fair to say that in the Baron o'Brackley the line which goes 'fetch yer rocks, lassies' is often replaced with 'fetch yer guns, ladies' for the same reason that the preceding 'she's called to her maries' is replaced with 'she's called to her servants' or 'lasses' - the original is not understood by modern audiences, and there's no point in telling a story if people don't understand the words. David Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
