nigger.... found in Guinea; big bottom... found in Cambridgeshire

For some reason I've been strangely fascinated by what other words could ni**er be other than the obvious. So I turned my looking glass towards the Oxford English Dictionary, which claims there are a stunning 28 definitions for words which fit this pattern in the Second Edition. Although many of these are multiple definitions.

The highlights include: nibber   which is the instrument that puts the nib or point on a pen; nicher   either a neigh/laugh or to neigh/laugh loudly; nicker   which means many things; nidder   which is a variation of nither; niffer   an/to exchange; nigger   for which the first entry is nigger... found in Guinea and the last is nigger... found in work (as in work like a nigger... which means to work hard, on the off chance Big Ron is reading this); nimmer   a pilferer; nipper   one who nips or a close-fisted miserly person or a thief or `A boy, a lad. Also, a girl; a child of either sex; the smallest or youngest of a family.'; nither   to humble,oppress, etc.; nitter   which is last but not least ‘The horse bee that deposits nits on horses’

So there is today's educational post. Frankly, anything that gives me the excuse to write the word pilferer is a wonderful thing. Particularly as I can reminisce about the bus from Haverhill (where I unfortunately spent far too many years) to Cambridge, which went through a little town called Horseheath (or maybe it was Linton I'm thinking of, anyway here's a map of the region). In Horseheath/Linton about 10 years ago there was a building site with a sign reading "Pilferers will be prosecuted"... I always wanted to get off the bus and steal the sign... never did though.

Oh, and if you look at the map again you'll see what great named places there are near where I used to live... Streetly End, Shudy Camps, Dullingham, Helions Bumpstead, Wiggens Green, Withersfield, Chimney Steet, Barnadiston, Steeple Bumpstead, Saffron Walden (just off the bottom of the map), Westley Waterless , Assington Green (for those of an American spelling disposition) which curiously enough close to Pound Green and Mount Pleasant, Stradishall (which just sounds great) and of course the greatest named town in all the world, or at least one of them, Six Mile Bottom.