Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1917 — Old North English Dialect [ARTICLE]

Old North English Dialect

A strange set of numerals was used by the elder generation of farmers in one of our northern dales, especially for counting sheep, says the London Chronicle, and the procedure was as follows: A gap was made in the wall just wide enough to admit one sheep at a time, and as the sheep were driven through the farmer counted them, making a notch in his stick at every 15. Phonetically the numerals sound like “yann, tane, tether, mether, pip, sax, sane, catterer, wheeler, dick, yann-lefe-dlck, tane-er-dlck, teth-er-dlck, meth-er-er-dick, boomfit.” “Boomfit” was fifteen, and so a notch was made in the stick, and the strange chant began all over again.