Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Popular language; the dialect spoken by the common people of a country or district, as distinguished from the speech of the educated people or from the literary language.
Etymologies
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Examples
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"An ounce o 'mother-wit is worth a pound o' clergy," says the Scotch proverb, and the "mother-wit," _Muttergeist_ and _Mutterwitz_, that instructive common-sense, that saving light that make the genius and even the fool, in the midst of his folly, wise, appear in folk-lore and folk-speech everywhere.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
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The primitive child, as language and folk-lore demonstrate, has been weighed, measured, and tested physically and mentally by his elders, much as we ourselves are doing now, but in ruder fashion -- there are primitive anthropometric and psychological laboratories as proverb and folk-speech abundantly testify, and examinations as harassing and as searching as any we know of to-day.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
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Here belongs a large amount of folk-lore and folk-speech relating to the defective, delinquent, and dependent members of human society, whose misfortunes or misdeeds are assigned to atavistic causes, to demoniacal influences.
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
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The subject of the human physiognomy and physical characteristics in folk-lore and folk-speech is a very entertaining one, and the practices in vogue for beautifying these are legion and found all over the world
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day Alexander F. Chamberlain
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They are not at ease in a French garb, -- nor, for that matter, in any other than their own diaphanous, sun-tinted, vowelly Provençal, unless they could find their expression in some _folk-speech_, as the
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861 Various
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This tendency will, no doubt, be regretted by the majority of white readers; and, indeed, it would be a distinct loss if the American Negro poets threw away this quaint and musical folk-speech as a medium of expression.
Preface James Weldon Johnson 1922
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Moreover, this strong revolt against conventional bonds is by no means confined to the folk-speech, nor even to the loose conversational English of the upper classes; it also gets into more studied discourse, both spoken and written.
Chapter 1. Introductory. 5. The General Character of American English Henry Louis 1921
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The picture becomes very much less stately in Norwegian folk-speech:
An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway Martin Brown Ruud 1913
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This tendency will, no doubt, be regretted by the majority of white readers; and, indeed, it would be a distinct loss if the American Negro poets threw away this quaint and musical folk-speech as a medium of expression.
The Book of American Negro Poetry James Weldon Johnson 1904
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In that wonderful folk-speech which so often touches foundation truths, they were not all there.
Remember the Alamo 1888
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