Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: annew on February 16, 2014, 09:40:07 PM
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A puzzle for you!
I know this is a little off-piste, but we are trying to transcribe an early 18th century diary, and have come across some words which we can't decipher. Does anyone have any expertise in this? You never know what the forum's collective brain can do!
Picture 1: context is - Mary and Susan pen'd a (Millimass?) to Doctor Turnbull presumably some sort of letter or note.
Picture 2: context is at the time of Lord Nelson's victory/death - got to bed a little after one - but was very much disturbed by Harry Dinning and John Younghusband calling ....?...
Picture 3: context is - George sue each of a strong brandy.....?..... (we thought it might be 'chaser?')
The writer was not very precise in her spelling or grammar but was a well brought-up young lady in Northumberland.
Any offers?
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Lol, this is fun.
3 could be "hearer" ? :o
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I think #3 is "shearer" and #1 is "millimass" but #2 is difficult to see.
A brandy shearer is maybe a night cap?
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My two cents worth....
2. Could this be neighbour ?
3. one each, not sue each ?
- for circled bit - the area ?
-Sharon
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My two cents worth....
2. Could this be neighbour ?
3. one each, not sue each ?
- for circled bit - the area ?
-Sharon
My twopenny worth (no expertise here):
2. 'neighbour' looks possible
3. 'one' not 'sue' - I agree
- the 'area'? - not to my eyes
Anne - it might help to have more 'context' i.e., more of the page. 'millimass' is very puzzling - a dialect term?
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Is that a capital 'M' in Milli? Before the UK adopted the metric system there were not many words in the language beginning milli but I think Millie has been used for a long time as a diminutive for Millicent or Emily or quite a few other female names. And Millie it could easily be written as Milli. Not that that gets you very far.
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Unfortunately, we don't have scans of the whole pages - hoping to sort that out before too long. That would help us to compare how she writes certain letters.
I knew I could rely on the forumists for some ideas!
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Goodness, what a lot of people are called Brandy Shearer! (googled)
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A friend who transcribes documents both for the Aberdeen art gallery and a museum, has sent me two web sites which could help. There's http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/coach.asp (http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/coach.asp) which gives you a free online tutorial on old Scots writing.( Northumberland may be close enough! ) A lot of it is older than the 18th C, but it is nonetheless very interesting. The other site she recommended was www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/ (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/)
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Thanks, Maggi, we'll have a look.
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Familiarity with the handwriting of the writer are most important when looking at this sort of thing. Letters, particularly capital letters, can be written in a very individual way. I have transcribed a number of 15th to 17th century Wills (in both English and abbreviated Latin) and transcription gets much easier the longer you look at a document - however single words taken out of context are nearly impossible to decipher.
Therefore No 1 could start with a capital "B" rather than an "M" although the context should still indicate lower case letters. Compare it with the capital B's in Nos 2 and 3.
For what it is worth, I would say No 3 might be "nearer" (with an initial flourish on the "n") especially as the following word could be "before" although it is truncated.
Would be nice to see the rest of the whole pages to compare with other occurrences of the same letters. Do let us know how you get on with this one eventually.
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No 2. "orphan" ?
No 3. (above circled part) I see not "one" or "sue" but "me" ???
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Thanks to Maggi's link,
I think we've sorted the word in picture 2 - oyez (we think they'd be shouting about Nelson's victory).
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Ultima Spes but see the message below
oys - bis - I cannot reveal the letter e, the two dashes belong probably together
shearer
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Have you thought of asking a doctor?
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:) ;D :)
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Have you thought of asking a doctor?
Actually I feel quite well today... :P
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It was presented as a puzzle, not as a scientific problem.
Nothing reasonable resulted.
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It cannot be taken seriously. It is fun. But fantasy works.
Lillimassy = Lilliputian massy = small mercy
Minimercy would be nowadays equivalent.
I found massy = mercy in my English-Czech dictionary
but not in other dictionaries. It might be nonsense.
Multimassy is possible reading too.
oys - bis -
oys = young man in one-year-service bis = twice
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Interesting ideas!
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Another possible reading of the second expression is
dys - bis -
dys = daily service; duty service; duty soldier
Ask Ministry of Defence whether abbreviations
OYS or DyS were used in the army and which
was the meaning.
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Dear Anne,
I wonder if you managed to decipher the words correctly.
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This is what my aunt decided:
One of the words was OYEZ – as in town crier ringing his bell and calling out OYEZ to catch folks attention
Couldn’t decide whether it was Brandy Chaser or Shearer – so just made it Brandy
Left Millimass in the text – hopefully some smarty pants will make contact and tell me what it is!
Thanks for everyone's help!