HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01032 3/11/01 "ORIGIN OF WORD KIMBERLIN" ================================================================ Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:06:15 +0000 From: Birgit Plietzsch Subject: Kimberlin I am stuck about the origin of the word "kimberlin". Hardy uses it in _The Well-Beloved_ as an expression used by inhabitants of the Isle of Slingers to refer to people from the mainland Wessex. I cannot find "kimberlin" in either Barnes's _Glossary of the Dorset Dialect_ or in the online OED. Does anybody know whether "kimberlin" was used on the Isle of Portland as Hardy suggests it? If not, what could have been the source for Hardy's usage? Thanks for any information, Birgit Plietzsch ========== Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 07:57:12 -0800 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Kimberlin Birgit, Ralph Elliott, in _Thomas Hardy's English_ defines it as follows: "Another example of patois occurs in _The Well-Beloved_, where Hardy uses words distinctive of Portland speech: "kimberlin," a local variant of "comeling," denotes an outsider, as Hardy glosses: '"kimberlins", or "foreigners" as strangers from the mainland of Wessex were called.'" Betty Cortus ==========