It’s an exciting day at Morning Bray Farm. In just a few short hours, we’ll be sitting on our back patio with Carson enjoying Maryland blue crabs that have come straight out of the Chesapeake Bay. To mark the occasion, we share with you the Merlin Dialect.
If you’ve grown up or lived in Maryland for any part of your life, you’ll find this hits rather close to home.
The Merlin (Maryland) Dialect is spoken by a mixed population which inhabits a triangular area on the western littoral of the Chesapeake Bay, bounded roughly by a line commencing at Towson’s Toyota, then westward to the Frederick Mall, thence following the western border of the cable TV franchise and the string of McDonald’s along Route 50 to the Bay.
All of these lands and the natives thereof are known as the Land of Merlin.
They divide it further into semi-tribal areas called Cannies “COUNTIES”
(e.g.,Ballmer Canny, PeeJee Canny, Hard Canny, etc.).
The dialect area is centered on a market center called Glimburny, where the people come on weekends to trade their goods.
Because of the numerous words and phrases common to both the Merlin Dialect and modern English, linguists have long postulated that there is some kinship between the two. Speakers of Merlin Dialect are all able to understand standard English from babyhood, chiefly because of their voracious appetite for television. However, they invariably refuse to speak standard English, even with outsiders who obviously are not understanding a word they say.
LESSON 1 – VOCABULARY
Ballmer – Our city
Merlin – Our State
Arn – What you do to wrinkled clothes
Bulled Egg – An egg cooked in water
Jeet – How we say “Did you eat”?
Chest Peak – A large nearby body of water
Colleyflare – A white vegetable
Downey Owe Shin – Summertime destination “Down to the ocean” (such as Ayshun City)
Faren Gins – Red trucks that put out fires
Hi Hon – How we always say “hello”
Meedjum – The grassy area between lanes of a highway
Nap Lis – State of Merlin capital
Ole Bay – What our crabs taste like
Oreos – Not a cookie, but our baseball team
Payment – That strip of cement that you walk on
PohLeese – Those guys in uniform that git ya when you’re speeding
Share – Hot water that cleans you in the morning
Flares – Such as tulips
Tarred – What happens when you work too hard
Warsh – What we do with dirty clothes
Warter – What we drink (can also be Wooter)
Brawl – Broil
Sem elem – Seven Eleven
Allanic – an ocean
Arnjuice – from the sunshine tree
Arouwn in all directions – norf, souf, ees, and wess
Aspern – what you take for headaches
Bald – some people like their eggs this way
Bawler – what the plumber calls your furnace
Beeno – a famous railroad
Calf Lick – bleevers are Protestant, Jewish, and .
Canny – a state gubmit division, such as Anne Arundel or Prince George’s
A few of you shared kind comments about my hat in yesterday’s post. A couple of you suggested that my hat needed a flower. Since it’s a Maryland kind of weekend here at Morning Bray, Don went out and picked one of our Black-eyed Susans and slipped it into the brim of my hat with a ribbon.
The Black-eyed Susan has been the official Maryland flower since 1918 when it was designated the “Floral Emblem” of Maryland by the General Assembly.
Morning Bray Farm 