User talk:Marmoset Marmalade
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I looked over the google books hits for spetchel. I don't see a single one there that would qualify as a use. That means you have to work harder to get data attesting to its use. Do you have any idea of the etymology of the word? It certainly looks Germanic. Are there other spellings? Was it used in Middle English? Old English? There might be some grounds for including the meaning under a different spelling and then including spetchel in the usage note or as an alternate spelling, if not a separate entry. Are other words descended from it, possibly in a dialect? Is it a word you have heard in speech or in local geographic names? Your own experience may give you ideas about evidence. DCDuring 15:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
- I've been scouring various journals and newspaper articles looking for it. I've come close in a few instances, and even found a similar word, called spetchell (source in use here, here, here, here, and here). I'm going to do some research on Northumberland and North County and see when it was typically used and then find newspaper databases for the time period it was popular. --Marmoset Marmalade 15:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
- I also noted that the dialect word "spetch" means "patch". One could easily suspect that "patch" and "spetch"/"spetchel" are related. Etymology for patch refers to Middle English "pecce", which might have been pronounced like "petch". "Petch" is quite possibly eye dialect for the local pronunciation of the word, which may never have made it to print. But it seems to be connected to "piece", of Old French, and probably Vulgar Latin origin. That means that my conjecture about a Germanic/Dutch/Friesiam/Old English connection is probably wrong. DCDuring 17:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
- I did notice there are some variations on spelling on some German sites. --Marmoset Marmalade 18:49, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
The use of spetchel as "A levee or dike made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them." appears to have become more widespread than in did in 2008, thus I have re-added it. --Marmoset Marmalade 00:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
Just in case you were wondering where the entries went. Also, you may want to look at some of the work I've done on them. The formatting was badly in need of help. Any questions feel free to ask. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)