YANKEE DICTIONARY.

By Charles F.Haywood '25. Lynn, Mass.: Jackson &Phillips, Inc., 1963. 207 pp. $2.95.

When Mr. Haywood was writing his saltwater novel, Eastward the Sea (1959), he found himself doing a lot of research on the colloquial speech of old Salem and Marblehead. He then began to compile what he called his "Yankee Dictionary" and some of the more colorful figures of speech appeared in an article, "A Dollop of Yankee Talk," printed in the February 1961 issue of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE.

Mr. Haywood has now expanded his collection into a book, Yankee Dictionary, aptly subtitled "A Compendium of Useful and Entertaining Expressions Indigenous to New England." Whether the reader chooses to go straight through this delightful volume or to practice "sortilege" by opening the book at random (as the old New En glanders used to do with the family Bible when seeking divine guidance), he will find salty and entertaining reading, reminiscent maybe of the things he heard his grandparents talk about.

Many of the figures of speech in YankeeDictionary are of nautical origin - cut of his jib, daown bucket, grounded out, Nantucket sleigh ride, swallow the anchor, widow maker, and the like - but life ashore is also well represented — afoot or ahossback, belly bump, church stick, Democrat wagon, eating tobacco, heater piece, huckleberry grunt, liar's bench, on the hind tit, poor man's manure, puckersnatch, switchel, and many more phrases one is tempted to list. New England flavor is nicely enhanced by the drawings accompanying many of the definitions.

Even Dartmouth College is included, but since Harvard and Yale are not to be found, this entry is probably to be explained by the green-tinted loyalty of the author.

For anyone interested in New England or for the Dartmouth man with a second home there, Yankee Dictionary should be an appreciated book. Nichols-Ellis Press, 53 State Street, Boston, has copies if local bookstores do not.