If we at head-quarters
commit such blunders can we wonder at our provincial detachments
falling into similar errors? none certainly more gross than this!]
Thic is in the Somersetshire dialect (namely that to which I have
particularly directed my attention and which prevails on the east
side of the Parret) invariably employed for that. Thic house, that
house; thic man, that man: in the west of the county it is thiky,
or thecky. Sometimes thic has the force and meaning of a personal
pronoun, as:
Catch and scrabble
Thic that's yable:--
Catch and scramble
He who's able.
Again, thic that dont like it mid leave it,--he who does not like
it may leave it. It should be noted that th in all the pronouns
above mentioned has the obtuse sound as heard in then and this and
not the thin sound as heard in both, thin, and many other words of
our polished dialect. Chaucer employed the pronoun thic very
often, but he spells it thilk; he does not appear, however, to
have always restricted it to the meaning implied in our that and
to the present Somerset thic.
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