Re: English Midden


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Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on May 16, 2005 at 17:42:25 from 217.137.108.57 user Laurence_.

In Reply to: Re: English Midden posted by John Nichols on May 16, 2005 at 16:32:19:

Whatever it might have been in the past (and I am impressed by the range of uses we have now been taught) on an English - specifically Lake District - farm it was and is the area of the yard where the accumulations from the floors of byres and stables are stacked to rot before being spread on the fields. Doubtless once human waste, too, but not normally today.

Where there sre loose poultry they will tend to scratch on and around it and the dominant cock will stand on top and crow. This surely is what Cook had in mind.

Incidentally for any delicate eared Transatlantic colleagues it should be made clear that the word cock may (at least in the English home country) be used with perfect propriety to describe the male of the hen species and numerous other species of birds, or an appliance for regulating a flow of water or steam.


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