atween - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
atween prep Between. [< Old English a- + -tween, -twene; oed atween prep c1400→, archaic and dialect; snd atween 1721→]
Ulst.:
c1800 Thomson (in 1992 Scott and Robinson Samuel Thomson 55) The road is lang an’ unco dreigh, / And roaring seas do intervene; / And cauld-rife mountains, wild an’ heigh, / Erect their joyless brows atween.
1840 Boyce Shandy Maguire 6 It’s no much grass he’d let grow to his heels atween Stranorlar and Donegal.
1898 MacManus Humours of Donegal 60 Atween you an’ me an’ the bedpost, there’s them an’ their prayers isn’t maybe as often answered as Father Luke’s.
c1910 Wier Bab McKeen 97 A farmer’ll come forrit to a likely lad or lass, an’ mak’ enquiries, an’ sometimes a conversation’s carriet on atween them.
1933 MacNeill Reverence Listens 43 ‘I seen ye’, says I, ‘comin’ home from the Soiree, the two o’ yees, and there wasn’t a patch of moonshine atween ye’.
1949 Mac Airt Tyrone Folktales 37 Atween the eating and drinking and all it came to ten shillings.
U.S.:
1834 Downing Life Andrew Jackson 103 He therefore retired tu a narrow pass atween the swamp and the Missippi.
1913 Kephart Our Sthn High 225 Atween the shoulders I’ve got a pain.
Purchase From Ulster to America
The second, revised edition of Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America is now available here:
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (Europe)
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (North America)
