(no subject)
Jun. 12th, 2006 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
undyingkingI was reminded last night of a summer evening a few years ago when I was sat out in a meadow with friend M (who grew up in Suffolk), and a huge ungainly great beetle came buzzing into us out of the darkness.
"Waah! A billywitch!" exclaimed M.
"A whattywitch did you say?" I asked incredulously, once it had safely blundered on its way.
"A billywitch! What would you call it then?"
"A cockchafer," I said.
The unspoken which is a perfectly sensible name, unlike 'billywitch' hung heavily in the air between us, not so much fluttering as floundering.
So a similar thing happened last night, although these days I'm surrounded by people from Suffolk so it's not such a surprise. And I wondered if it's just a Suffolk name, and how it arose. Maybe from unhappy memories of the Batttle of Sole Bay, when the English Navy were defeated by the Dutch under the leadership of William of Orange? Come to that, how did the name cockchafer arise? I dread to think.
So, if you saw one of these flying towards you...
[Poll #746506]
"Waah! A billywitch!" exclaimed M.
"A whattywitch did you say?" I asked incredulously, once it had safely blundered on its way.
"A billywitch! What would you call it then?"
"A cockchafer," I said.
The unspoken which is a perfectly sensible name, unlike 'billywitch' hung heavily in the air between us, not so much fluttering as floundering.
So a similar thing happened last night, although these days I'm surrounded by people from Suffolk so it's not such a surprise. And I wondered if it's just a Suffolk name, and how it arose. Maybe from unhappy memories of the Batttle of Sole Bay, when the English Navy were defeated by the Dutch under the leadership of William of Orange? Come to that, how did the name cockchafer arise? I dread to think.
So, if you saw one of these flying towards you...
[Poll #746506]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 12:54 pm (UTC)I think the unabridged story of Thumbelina has a cockchafer in it, but I could be wrong...
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Date: 2006-06-12 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:08 pm (UTC)*turns around to Danish bloke*
Oldenborre
Handy when you work at a company that has every European language. :o)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:14 pm (UTC)We don't have Irish, Gaelic, Mansk, Cornish or any other obscure sub-languages, either. We do have Austrians, though, who definitely don't speak German. ;oþ
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 04:39 pm (UTC)However, regional variations rarely neatly follow official county boundaries, so it still provides a data point of where billywitch isn't (to my knowledge) used, on the Norfolk side of the border...
Watton is here
Annoyingly, I can't fnid the useful scale of multimap that shows county boundaries....
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 12:55 pm (UTC)"May Beetle" would be a literal translation from the German and also seems to be used in English.
Having checked a few online dictionaries, "cockchafer" seems to be the common name whereas I haven't been able to find "billywitch". Googling seems to reveal it's a name reserved to Essex and Suffolk. This page (scroll down) says it's a name for both the stag beetle and the "common chafer".
I really don't want to know where the name came from, either. ;o)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:08 pm (UTC)I guess our '-chafer' is from the German käfer?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:25 pm (UTC)Ahh. Or both have common roots.
m-w.com has this for the etymology of chafer:
Etymology: Middle English cheaffer, from Old English ceafor; probably akin to Old English ceafl jowl
So the common root is likely.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 02:35 pm (UTC)For example, my local dialect has various words that are derived from the French who were in the area during the 30 Years War...
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Date: 2006-06-12 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:28 pm (UTC)(heathen...)
Billywitch
Date: 2008-07-07 08:24 pm (UTC)Re: Billywitch
Date: 2008-07-07 08:25 pm (UTC)Re: Billywitch
Date: 2008-07-14 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 09:14 pm (UTC)