young one - 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.
young one, young’n, young’un, young wan, young yin n A child, young person. [dare young one n especially South, South Midland]
Ulst.:
1863 Hume Rabbin’s Ollminick 6 [Mon. Jennewerry 5] Oul’ Chrissimis Day: They say it’s more luckier nor the new one; but most o’ the young ones knows nothin’ about the oul’ times afore the stile wos changed, an’ the people lost their eleven days.
1920 McCallin Fireside Tales 183 As it sometimes happens with the oul’ fellas like that, it was a young’n—only the slip of a girl not more than two or three and twenty—that took his fancy.
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.
2004 Ate Up 24 A guid run o hungerin thaa’s whaat you yung yins need tae make them think mare o their mate.
U.S.:
1859 Taliaferro Fisher’s River 114 With the ‘young’uns’ it was a generation from one Christmas to another.
1931 Goodrich Mt Homespun 63 [She was] quite unfit to take up the battle of life for herself and the three ‘young-uns’ clinging to her skirts.
1962 Dykeman Tall Woman 112 Go out and tend to the young’ns.
1997 Montgomery Coll He is forever talking about how sorry his young’uns are.
