langwidge

English

Noun

langwidge (plural langwidges)

1. Eye dialect spelling of language.
   • 1891, Punch, Vol. 101‎^[1], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2004:

     "Such langwidge," he says, "is unbecoming and beneath Me—leastways unless it is remembered in the wages."

   • 1901, PT Ross, A Yeoman's Letters‎^[2], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2009:

     "Art thou weary, art thou langwidge?" he quoted after a reflective expectoration, which just missed my right foot.

   • 1915, Captain WHL Watson, Adventures of a Despatch Rider‎^[3], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2005:

     The soldiers thought they were spies. "As speaking the langwidge," I asked him what the matter was.

   • 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mucker‎^[4], All-Story Cavalier Weekly:

     "Sich langwidge!" cried the girl, with a laugh, covering her ears with her palms.

   • 1930, Roy Milton Iliff, In the Red‎^[5], reprint edition, Kessinger, published 2005, →ISBN, page 99:

     Grandpa grunted—and belched again. "That old windbag! And his langwidge!"

   • 2003, William Wymark Jacobs, Light Freights‎^[6], Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN, page 25:

     … the boy ran up on deck and went aft to the skipper and complained of Bill's langwidge.

   • 2005, James Edwin Miller, quoting Pound, 1922, T.S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet‎^[7], Penn State Press, →ISBN, page 389:

     That is 19 pages, and let us say the longest poem in the English langwidge.

   • 2009 Jun/Jul, Gary Jennings, “Sooner or Later or Never Never”, in Fantasy & Science Fiction, volume 116, number 6/7, page 171:

     But Pitjantjatjara, although it has four declensions and four conjugations, is alleged to be the simplest of all the bloody Australoid langwidges.