I'm sure you know that William Barnes, the Dorsetshire dialect poet, was the man who edited the glossary compiled by the Quaker farmer, Jacob Poole, in south-east Wexford towards the end of the 18th century.
The word ho, trouble, worry, is not in Poole, but Barnes has it in one of his own poems, and from another Dorset source we have - `In happy days when I were young, an' had noo ho.
Imagine my surprise when I was told in a letter from Eileen Rossiter, writing from Guildford, that ho was one of her Arklow grandmother's words. `I haven't a ho in the world,' she'd reply when one enquired about her health.
I've never come across this word in Ireland before. In the south of England they have it as a verb as well, meaning to longs for, also to care. `I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood being such a fool at this time of life as to ho and hanker after thick women', wrote Thomas Hardy in Far From the Madding Crowd.
Our friend Barnes has, `A don't know an' A don't ho' in his Dorset Glossary of 1863. The EDD tells me that it's oh in Somerset. Pregnant women are said to oh for things: `They auvis zaid how his mother oh'd vor strowberries, late in the fall.' The word is from Old English hogu, anxiety, care.
"I'm sure you've often heard Irish people say things like, `I caught him snaking around my room.' To settle an argument, could you please tell me whether this snake is related to the much maligned reptile, or is it an Irish mispronunciation of sneak?" James Hennebry of Waterford asks.
I'd prefer to call snake a dialect word in its own right, as old as sneak if not older, and it is found all over Britain. Burns has `While he, wi'hingin' lips an' snakin', Held up his head' in Holy Willie's Prayer, while Scott's pal, Hogg, the shepherd poet, speaks of `snaikin aboot i' the dark'.
D.H. Lawrence, too, was fond of the word. Its origin? Old English snikan to creep, crawl;. Old Norse snijka.
But isn't snaking what a' snake does? Indeed; but snake comes from Old English snaca, Old Norse snakr, related to Old High German snahhan, to crawl, and also, my dears, to the `Irish snaim, I crawl.