spang - 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.
spang In Ulster usually a noun (= a bound or leap) or verb (= to bound or leap); in the U.S. the term apparently only an adverb (= directly, absolutely, completely). [oed spang vb 1 ‘to spring, leap, bound; to move rapidly’ 1513→, originally and chiefly Scottish and northern, adv ‘with a sudden spring or impetus, slap (or) smack, entirely, quite; exactly, fair’ 1843→, originally and chiefly U.S.; dost spang n ‘a sharp, powerful, jerky movement; the noise accompanying this’ 16th century→; snd spang n2 ‘a pace, stride, long vigorous step, a bound, leap’; dare adv especially South, South Midland]
Ulst.:
1829 McSparran Irish Legend 12 Thrusting my hat down on my head that it might not fly off, I was with him in two or three spangs.
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 97 = a bound or spring.
1904 Byers Sayings of Ulster 42 He may be one of those undesirable men who give you a ’back-spang’, that is, fair to your face but treacherous behind your back (the word spang = a violent blow, a variant of spank, is met with in provincial English and Scotch, but in its Ulster use it conveys the idea of want of straightness or treachery).
1923 Lutton Montiaghisms 39 = a sudden spring, leap or bound.
1931 Bratton Turf Fire 22 I made a spang for the door, thinkin’ all the time that Huedy’s ghost was at my heels.
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 274-75 = (1) to walk quickly, to walk with long quick strides; (2) a leap, bound, spring, a long stride.
c1955 Montgomery Heard in Ulster 121 = long stride: ‘He tuk a coupla spangs and made a buck lep ower the dyke’.
U.S.:
1909 Payne Word-list East Alabama 373 = exactly, squarely, completely.
1917 Kephart Word-list 417 = exactly, directly: ‘He was right spang on the spot’.
1943 Hannum Mt People 100 His hair rose straight up on his head, and his chin whiskers like to pulled spang out.
1974 Fink Bits Mt Speech 24 That dog jumped right spang into the creek.
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)
