1840's Occupation

[arthurk]

On the subject of sugar and casting it over things my Dad who was from the Midlands used to say
‘shither (rhyming with wither) some sugar on my strawberries’ or ‘shither some soil over those seeds’

I used the expression once to a friend, who coincidentally was English but we both live in Scotland, and she had no idea what I meant.

I tried to look it up in a dictionary but couldn’t find it. Searching online gave me some questionable answers due to the spelling at the beginning so I gave up.

How common is this word and is is local to the Midlands ?

Based on Joseph Wright's Dialect Dictionary, it looks like a variant of a word that's almost identical except for having '-tt-' in the middle rather than '-th-, local to the north and midlands of England.

It's used of animals with diarrhoea (as a verb), but can also be used when referring to dry substances to mean something like spill - with a bit of rustic hyperbole, I can imagine it being used for more deliberate sprinkling or scattering too.

Joseph Wright's definition is at https://archive.org/details/cu31924088038421/page/n403/mode/2up

[Gillg]

arthurk
You worded that very delicately, whilst at the same time reminding us of a word that's all too familiar these days!  Just above the entry you mentioned is the dialect word "shither", which apparently means shudder or shake in Durham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.  Maybe this ties up with ofg's father's use of shaking sugar over strawberries, etc.

[arthurk]

I wondered about that 'shither', but it appeared to be an intransitive verb (one that doesn't take an object, as in 'he was shivering'). But who knows? 'Shake' can be either transitive or intransitive, so maybe a dialect word meaning more or less the same was thought to behave in the same way.

I didn't make notes, but while looking at this I saw cross-references to some similar words with a cluster of similar meanings: from memory, these included shutter, scutter and skither, as well as the more standard scatter and slither. I suspect some or all of them tended to merge into each other.

[Viktoria]

I have my mother’s caster sugar caster ,I treasure it, mince pies with a dusting of caster or icing  sugar.
It dates from at least 1933 when she got married but possibly her mother’s who married in 1885.

So precious I hardly use it but always at Christmas.
Viktoria.

[Gillg]

I also have one  which I think was a present for my parents' wedding in 1931, Viktoria.  It's shaped like a lighthouse and is made of pewter and is a bit Art Nouveau in style, so I think it may have been from rather earlier in the century.  Actually the holes are rather too big for caster sugar, unless you want a generous helping.