Last month, I wrote about those essential components of horse-drawn transportation, the whiffletree and the evener, but those words are just the beginning of a long list of harness-related words that have been largely forgotten. I say “largely” because, of course, those few who still have a cart and team of horses use these words every day. For the rest of us, though, these once-common words might as well be from a foreign language.
Let’s start with “hame.” Draft horses have soft collars to push against, and in each collar is a pair of hames — pieces of wood or metal that sometimes stick up over the collar and have fancy knobs on their ends. My grandfather liked to watch game shows, and in the ’60s, there was one called “Word for Word,” one of host Merv Griffin’s many productions. Merv would give contestants a long word, and they would have to make as many short words from it as possible. The one who got the most got a cash prize. $100. Wasn’t life simpler then! Grandpa was pretty disgusted once when a contestant came up with the word “hame,” and Merv disqualified him, ruling that it was not a word. The next day, however, that contestant came back actually holding a hame and was reinstated in the game. Grandpa was as satisfied as if he personally had flown to Los Angeles to set Merv straight. By the way, spellcheck is indicating “hame” in this piece of writing needs to be corrected because there is no such word. You can’t trust AI.
Attached to the hames are the leather “traces” that extend back to connect to the whiffletree. New Englanders would be more likely to use the word “tugs” instead of “traces,” though both can be found throughout the country.
On the horse’s head is the bridle, which some people use interchangeably with “headstall,” while others insist a headstall is just the top strap of the bridle. Fastened to the bridle near the eyes are the “blinders” that keep the horse from shying at sudden movements. The British call them “blinkers,” so if a guy from the U.K. accuses you of being blinkered, you’ll know he thinks you’re ignoring the facts.
Behind the horse is a strap called the “breeching,” which keeps the cart from riding up against the back end of the horse when you’re going downhill. It’s also what the horse pushes against when backing up. Grandpa insisted in no uncertain terms that this should be pronounced “britchin'” and, by the way, that’s how we should be pronouncing George Washington’s trousers too, even though it is spelled “breeches.” Take your cue from the well-known phrase “getting too big for your britches.”
Why isn’t “breeches” pronounced with long e? As part of a regular sound change centuries ago, “ee” became short i in certain contexts. When I was growing up, one of our favorite places to play was at the “crick.” It wasn’t until much later that I realized some people pronounced it like it’s spelled: “creek.” Surveys showed that “crick” was used throughout northern New England at the beginning of the 20th century, but by the 1960s had disappeared, though it was still common in the North from New York State all the way to the Pacific at that time. It’s the same sound change we see in “critter” from “creature,” or in “scritch owl,” found in Shakespeare and also preserved in parts of the South.
Well, we’ve drifted quite a distance from the harness, but I can’t refrain from one more example. We had some goats once — lots of fun but they were “britchy” (spelled “breachy”), a good old New England word for an animal that no fence can hold. With their flexible lips, they could manipulate the latch on the gate and then it was straight to the garden. I always knew when the goats had escaped and were destroying the flower beds, because a blood-curdling spousal “scritch” would shake the house, followed by the gnashing of teeth, and what I might judiciously call the warpath, if it were not politically incorrect.
Dale Coye is a member of the American Dialect Society. He has taught English and the humanities at several universities and worked in area theaters as a dialect coach and director. He grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and now lives in Wilton.