Words we use: owmly

A Yorkshireman who came to Dungarvan many years ago, to use the town as a base for fishing expeditions, and liked the place so much that he stayed, gave me many interesting words from his own dialect.

One of these was owmly, which means lonely, dismal, dreary; also lonely and spacious. The English Dialect Dictionary (EDD) has this from Yorkshire: Applied to localities; used especially with reference to large ancient houses, with few inmates: "Ah sudn't like to sleep wi mi-sen I' that greeat owmly house." The word is from the Norwegian dialect aumleg, poor, wretched, miserable, according to the great linguist, Aasen, ultimately from the Old Norse aumligr, according to Vigfusson.

I was reminded of a word given to me by a neighbour of mine in Co Wicklow, the late Ken Prince from Gloustershire, who navigated planes for Aer Lingus before his job was taken over by some piece of sophisticated machinery. His word was owless; indifferent, neglectful, unwilling to take trouble, listless; careless, devil-may-care; idle, lazy; thickheaded; disagreeable, according to the EDD. Owless is from the Norwegian dialect ulyst, indifferent, careless, having no desire, according to Ivor Aasen; and the EDD asks us to compare the Old Norse ulyst, a bad appetite, according to the great Vigfusson.

The adjective

own

has various dialect forms and uses in Scotland, Ireland and England. Interesting compounds are

own-born

, native. The

EDD

gives, “I shall put my old bones down in my ownbrn parish, I shall,” from Kent. It quotes this from

The Yorkshire Weekly Post

: “Them awn-made Yorkshire chaps.” There are the phrases,

the own

, the same material: “He mended his owd coot with a bit o’ the own.”

To be at one’s own fend

means to support or provide for oneself.

To be one’s own man

to have control over one’s words and actions.

To make own and own

, to sell at cost price without either profit or loss.

Diarmaid Ó Muirithe’s latest book,

The Last Word

, published by Gill & McMillan, is out now