through-other - 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.
through-other, throoither adj (with stress on first syllable) Confused, disordered, in a mess. Hence n Confusion, disorder. [oed throuither adv/adj/n 1 ‘(as a phrase, originally of two words) mingled through each other or one another; promiscuously; indiscriminately; in disorder’ 1596→, 2a ‘in predicative use: mingled or mixed up; in a medley; in confusion, in disorder’ 1630→, 3 ‘of persons or their attributes: disorderly; wild, reckless; disordered’ 1813→, chiefly Scottish; snd throuither adj ‘of persons: untidy, disorganised, unmethodical, slovenly, harum-scarum, unruly’ 1801→; in the U.S. this usage has been reinforced, especially in Pennsylvania, by the German form durcheinander ‘through one another’]
Ulst.:
1829 McSparran Irish Legend 84 Och, I believe nat, says she, for I’m some how or other all throughother, saving your presence.
1886 Lyttle Ballycuddy 28 A walkit oot then, an’ went intil my sate in the meetin’, but my heid wuz a’ throoither, an’ A got nae guid o’ the sermun.
1901 Byers Ulsterisms 64 Unfortunately the wife may turn out to be a bad manager and the husband a failure, the house then gets a ‘through-other’ appearance.
1920 McCallin Ulster Plenishing 68 He was as through-other in his affairs at the en’ of his career as when he started on it as the best han’ at all in his thrade.
1921 Irvine Poor Folk 111 M’ mind’s all throughother wi’ yer argymints, Anna.
1928 McKay Oul’ Town 14-15 Biddy was just as ‘throughother’ as the place she lived in; she hardly iver washed her face, and when she did give it a wipe she maintained she looked handsomer than the young wans.
1993 Montgomery Barnish 51 = untidy, without order, disorganised.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 252 throughither = confused: ‘a’ throughither wae bother’; = untidy: ‘a throughither cretter’; = higgledy-piggledy: ‘iverythin left throughither’.
U.S.:
1903 Misc Word-list 353 = confused, bothered: ’I feel all through-other’; ‘the things in the drawer are all through-other’.
1929 Buxbaum Iowa Locutions 303 There, in Sentimental Tommy, for instance, was that curious ‘through-each-other’ which I had once heard from a neighbor who declared with exasperation that the children had left their playthings ‘in a through-other’.
