Dammit I'm still trying to trace a written source for thole=keep silence.
My faltering memory says it's somewhere in the quaker literature, which wd
figure... or perhaps a folk translation of Wittgenstein? Gin tha kenstna,
tha mun thole...
Shush, wheesht etc are imperatives, yes? You wouldn't say, well, I'll
wheesht now, would you?
On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, F.A. Templeton wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, R I Caddel wrote:
>
> > Uh - sorry to come in late here - in the NE we have (but have almost lost)
> > "thole" - which means "keep silence". The oed I notice links this purely
> > to holding-ones-peace, putting-up-with - but that's a very narrow,
> > situation-driven aspect of a wider word. Or so it seems to me.
>
> Interesting, Ric. In Scotland we use thole transitorily - more like
> endure or abide, as in "I can't thole him." And shoosh or shush or
> wheesht are some of the many hush-words. They verge on hist, which means
> listen, doesn't it - a sometime part of silence.
>
> Fiona
>
>
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