Surrey dialect

The county was noted for its many agricultural proverbs. Some of the distinctive Surrey proverbs collected by Gower include:

• "So far as the sun shone into the house on Candlemas Day, so far would the snow drive in before the winter was out."
• "A fine Easter Day is followed by plenty of grass, but little good hay" (meaning that the summer will be wet).
• "Early thunder, late hunger."

A backward spring is thought to indicate a fruitful season ; the common people have this proverb : —

• "When the cuckoo comes to a bare thorn. Then there's like to be plenty of corn."

The prejudice against a new moon on a Saturday found expression in the following doggrel: —

• "Saturday new and Sunday full, Ne'er brought good and never shall."
• "So many fogs in March, so many frosts in May."
• "Christen your own child first" (charity begins at home)

• The Old and Middle English prefix of "a-" is used generally before substantives, before participles and with adjectives placed after nouns, e.g., a-coming, a-going, a-plenty, a-many.
• Double negatives in a sentence are common, "You don't know nothing", "The gent ain't going to give us nothing"
• "be" is common for "are", e.g., "How be you?" is noted, to which "I be pretty middlin', thank ye" was the usual answer.
• Superlatives (+est) were used in place of the word "most", e.g., "the impudentest man I ever see"
• "You've no ought" was the equivalent of "you should not"
• "See" was used for saw (the preterite usually past simple) of see
• "Grow'd," "know'd," "see'd," "throw'd," and similar were however also used both for the perfect and participle passive of the verbs, e.g., "I've know'd a litter of seven whelps reared in that hole"
• Past participle takes more complex forms after common consonants "-ded," "-ted," e.g., attackted, drownded, "Such a country as this, where everything is either scorched up with the sun or drownded with the rain."
• The pleonastic use of "-like" denoting "vaguely", e.g. comfortable-like, timid-like, dazed-like, "I have felt lonesome-like ever since."
• "all along of" meaning "because"

• bait – an afternoon meal about 4 pm
• bannick – a verb meaning to beat or thrash
• baulky – is said of a person who tries to avoid you
• beazled – tired
• beatle – a mallet
• befront – in front of
• beleft – the participle of "believe"
• bettermost – upper-class people
• bly – a likeness, "he has a bly of his father"
• burden – a quantity
• comb – the moss that grows on church bells
• clung – moist or damp grass
• dryth – drought
• fail – a verb meaning to fall ill
• fly-golding – a ladybird
• foundrous – boggy or marshy
• gratten – stubble left in a field after harvest
• hem – a lot or much
• hot – a verb meaning to heat something up, "hot it over the fire"
• innardly – to talk innardly is to mumble
• leastways – otherwise
• lief – rather, "I'd lief not"
• lippy – rude
• market fresh – drunk
• messengers – small clouds (also called "water dogs")
• middlin – reasonable or average
• mixen – a heap of dung or soil
• mothery – mouldy
• notation – making a fuss
• nurt – a verb meaning to entice
• ornary – being unwell (the word means "ordinary")
• peart – brisk or lively
• picksome – pretty or dainty
• platty – uneven
• quirk – a faint noise indicating fear
• runagate – good for nothing
• sauce – vegetables, e.g. "green sauce", pronounced "soss"
• scrow – a verb to scowl
• shatter – sprinkling
• shifty – untidy
• shuckish – unsettled, showery weather
• snob – shoemaker
• spoon meat – soup
• statesman – landowner
• stood – stuck
• swimy – giddy
• the smoke – London
• tidy – adjective meaning good or well
• timmersome – timid
• uppards – towards London or in the north
• venturesome – brave
• welt – scorched
• wift – quick

Certain standard English words with nonstandard pronunciations:

" Acrost for across; agoo for ago; batcheldor for bachelor; brownchitis (or sometime brown titus) for bronchitis; chimley or chimbley for chimney; crowner for coroner; crowner's quest for coroner's inquest; curosity and curous for curiosity and curious ; death for deaf; disgest for digest, and indisgestion for indigestion; gownd for gown; scholard for scholar; nevvy for nephew; non-plush'd for non-plussed; refuge for refuse; quid for cud, " chewing the quid; "sarment for sermon; varmint for vermin; sloop for slope; spartacles for spectacles; spavin for spasms. I knew an old woman who was constantly suffering from "the windy spavin;" taters for potatoes; wunstfor once; wuts for oats, etc., etc."[2]