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Archiver > VERMONT > 1999-05 > 0925614292


From: "Jackie M. Botala" <>
Subject: [VERMONT-L] more old papers...
Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 20:04:52 -0700


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Unique spelling of the Seventeen Hundreds:

Authentick dore hors(horse) fronteers(frontiers)
publik wheate lode (load) fourts (forts)
stiddy draud corts(courts) rected(erected)
herers(hearers)ajourn rode (road) bushelle(bushel)
servis Wednes Day caus(cause) joine(join)
preachin embassidor terme(term)
settel housen(plural for house) lieve(leave)
discressioneary hous pottatos
sware shoon(plural for shoe) suffitient (sufficient)

Unique first names:

Elisha Isaac Cato Cuff Abijah
Hosea Gamaliel Eleazer Elnathan Theophilus
Resolved Alonzo Elijah Wyat Phineas
Zenas Eliphas Abial Rothmel Branabas
Simeon Darius Isreal Ezra Ophir
Elias Ebenezer Ephraim Barkos Elihu

(contributed by Eugene A Dana, Sharon)

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Superstitions

If you put on a stocking wrongside out, leave it that way or it
will change your luck.

If you drop a spoon on the floor a child will visit you.
If you drop your dishcloth your beau is coming.

If the potato kettle keeps boiling dry, although more water
is put in, it will rain soon.

(contributed by Florence E. Waters, Bondville)

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If the points of the new moon are high enough so that water
would not run out, it's a dry moon; expect fair weather; other-
wise, a rainy month.

If Thanksgiving mud holds up a duck
the rest of the winter you'll wallow in muck.

As the day begins to lengthen
The cold begins to strengthen.

Signs of a severe winter: If the squirrels lay in an extra
store of nuts; if the rabbits have an unusually heavy coat of
fur; if the sumacs turn brown too early; if the scales are thick
on buds, or the skin thick on apples.

Examine black and brown catipillars. If the black is heavy
an the front end the first of winter will be severe; if the black
is heavy on the rear end, the last of winter will be the worst.

If the 'melt' or spleen, of a hog killed in the fall is long and
thick, we will have a long hard winter; if it is short and thin we
shall have a brief mild term of cold weather. If it is big at the
front end, the winter will be the sharpest at the begining; if it
is biggest at the rear, the winter will be coldest in the latter
part.

If the snow on the road melts off, the next storm will be rain;
if it blows off, the next storm will be snow.

If the sun looks brassy at sunset look for high winds.

A cricket is supposed to chirp according to the heat.
A simple formula is to count the number of chirps in fourteen
seconds, and by adding forty to the count you have the temp-
erature, fairly accurate.

The Indians used to say that when locks turn damp in the
scalp house, rain will come.

Fill the hog house on the growing moon and the pork will
swell in the barrel; otherwise it will shrink.

(Contributed by Maud A. Jackson, Windsor)

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