A quick check on Google’s Ngram Viewer suggests that the word ‘yonder’ has been undergoing a revival in recent decades, at least in books. As always, a question of verbal fashion arises. Should I use the word myself or risk being too avant-garde?
Some obvious uses of the word in daily life could be –
- Beyond yonder Sainsbury’s lie the limestone dales of Derbyshire.
- Hark how yonder oaf does shout unseemly epithets into his phone.
- Make haste before yonder coffee shop is besieged by yonder coachload of oldies.
Two ‘yonders’ in the third sentence. Not bad going, but I don’t see the revival being sustained beyond yonder social collapse.
10 comments:
I have a vague memory that in boyhood a distant thing was "yon". Was "yonder" further away? Memory fails but I suspect "yonder" was vaguer than "yon" or, at least, more spread out.
As in "You see yon kye?" versus "You see that moor yonder?"
Does it relate to a purported Glasgow rhyme?
"In yonder field there stauns a coo
If it's no there it's awa the noo."
Sainsburys? Rather than go thither we have the deliveries come hither.
Or did we say "You see thon kye?" I wish I had a better memory.
dearieme - John Buchan used "yon" quite frequently to indicate a Scottish dialect when the speaker is referring to something which could be anywhere from nearby to far away. It seems to be more specific than "yonder". I have a vague idea that I once knew someone who used it, but memory gives up at that point.
Sam - we go thither when incommoded by deficient Tesco deliveries.
In Scotland, and probably in Northern Ireland and North of England where dialects know no borders, yon was and still is used to mean yonder. I think it only applies to singular things. So yon hill, but yonder hills. I do not know why.
The well known Burns poem, A Man's A Man For A' That, has : "See yon birkie ca'd a lord, wha struts an' stares an' a' that."
My job took me to Landes region of France and could understand much of what was said.
I once overheard one friend of mine talking to another about another worker.To me it sounded like "He is a coo, Il est un coo. Perfect pronunciation of the Scots cow. So I asked what he meant and he whispered to me "He is an arsehole." Cul. Interesting that he used arse and not the American donkey. Such larks.
Doonhamer - good point, yon as I know it does apply to singular things but yonder can be either. A chap I used to work with retired somewhere near that area of France, Lot-et-Garonne maybe.
I know the John Mayall version better but this will sufice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXzf3ONDVbk
Woodsy - thanks, that's it being used as a kind of folksy word I'd say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knF-J4ppxcY
dearieme - feels like Sunday already.
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