(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

Before I turn in after this excrutiating day, I thought I'd share something with you. Some dialogue does not age well. For example:

"The deacon has a hundred acres of dyke."
-- "Seventy," said the Deacon, "only seventy."
-- "Well, seventy; but then there is your fine deep bottom. Why, I could run a ramrod into it."
-- "Interval, we call it," said the Deacon, who, though evidently pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experiment of the ramrod be tried in the right place.
-- "Well, interval if you please (though professor Eleazer Cumstick, in his work on Ohio, calls them bottoms) is just as good as dyke."

From Thomas Chandler Haliburton's 1836 Canadian classic, The Clockmaker. A "dyke" is an earthen barrier holding back a river. An "interval" or "bottom" is land bordering the river (presumably deep = good soil). A ramrod is a rod used for loading a front-loading gun, like a musket.

Though on second reading, I think some of it may be intentional. Especially the joke about bottoms. Still, most of it is pure accident, if the dates in my Cassell's Dictionary of Slang are accurate.