Inter-County Semantics - Round 2...

As Ed and Electro have launched into Inter-County Semantics, Rumours, Myths and Damn Bloody Lies, I’m getting my retaliation in first by copying a method of counting sheep, which originated in Sussex.

The shepherd would let two sheep through at a time, and when he’d reached ‘Den’ (ten), he would cut a notch on a stick to denote a ‘score’, i.e. twenty.

I was given a book on very important things like this when I was twenty-one, and in a fit of generosity once, gave it to my local pub, where there were still some locals who remembered the rhyme! Sometimes they'd all sit there chanting it over pints of Old and Mild...!

One-erum,
two-erum,
cock-erum,
shu-erum,
sith-erum.
sath-erum,
wineberry,
wagtail,
tarry-diddle,
den.

Quaint isn’t it?

And if anyone as much as breathes anything about kilts, zips, wellingtons, mountains etc., there are still plenty of pictures of the war wound which will arrive in a plain brown envelope and with a sickening thud...