Mrs Victoria Lumley of Tullamore, Co Offaly, sent me a word used by her late father, who hailed from Lisburn, Co Antrim. The word is fosey, and it was used to describe very fresh bread, she says.
This word, often spelled fozy, is referred to by many of the old Ulster glossaries. The English Dialect Dictionary glosses it as light, spongy, soft.
It seems to be often used of vegetables, turnips in particular, so W.H. Patterson tells us in his glossary of Antrim and Down words of 1880. "Spongy, as a fozey turnip," wrote Simmons in his glossary of Donegal words of 1890; and the great cornucopia of Antrim words, the Ballymena Observer of 1892, also speaks of fozey, spongy turnips.
The word probably came to Ulster from Scots, but is common in England's North Country and found as far south as East Anglia. It also means fat, bloated, in Scotland. `Gin I hed been a dizzen o' year younger, I wud a' tann't the muckle fozy hide o' ye', wrote Alexander in his engaging Ain Folk in 1862.
The word has also come to mean stupid, dull-witted, hazy, foggy, obscured.
As to the question of origin, it is Germanic. Take the Low German voos, spongy, add y, and there you have it. The Dutch also has voos: "spungie, een voose rape, an unsavourrie rape that hath noe tast', according to Hendrick Hexham, who published a famous Dutch-English dictionary in 1658.
Gerry McCarthy of Glasnevin wrote to tell me that snig, noun and verb, is used in a hurling context in east Waterford. It is a one-handed flick with the hurl. Poached goals are got by a snig, and by snigging the ball over the line; often used in terms of flukey scores.
I can only hazard a guess as to the origin of Gerry's word. Would it be the English slang and dialect word, meaning to steal? Kipling has "If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line," somewhere.
Tom Carr has sent me over the years many interesting words connected with fishing, many of them gone out of use now, unfortunately. Take the word rig, a fierce gust of wind. This, surely, is related to the Old Icelandic hregg, storm and rain, according to Vigfusson's great dictionary.
Tom is not sure whether he heard this word; he has fished from most ports from Yarmouth to Killybegs. It's a good word, wherever he heard it, and I thank him for it.