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Wu Ting
How would you interpret these two phrases?
How would you interpret these two phrases in the last but one passage?
1. Hidget Asylm
2. get the rights of
Thank you.
PS: the excerpt is taken from At The Back of The North Wind written by the Scottish writer George MacDonald.
the context:
"I don't think so much of it," said the girl. "I'm used to it, I suppose. But I can't think how a kid like you comes to be out all alone this time o' night."
She called him a kid, but she was not really a month older than he was; only she had had to work for her bread, and that so soon makes people older.
"But I shouldn't have been out so late if I hadn't got down to help you," said Diamond. "North Wind is gone home long ago."
"I think you must ha' got out o' one o' them Hidget Asylms," said the girl. "You said something about the north wind afore that I couldn't get the rights of."
So now, for the sake of his character, Diamond had to tell her the whole story.
Mar 31, 2020 6:50 AM
Answers · 3
1
I think 'them Hidget Asylms' is eye-dialect spelling of 'those Idiot Asylums'.
In the Victorian era, Britain was full of asylums: institutions where people were locked away if they were seen to show any form of mental illness, including the mentally handicapped. Cruel as it sounds today, 'idiot' used to be an official term for an intellectually disabled person: you will see this word written against people's names in censuses, even in the early twentieth century.
I'd interpret 'I couldn't get the rights of' as 'I couldn't make sense of'.
The girl thinks that Diamond must be mad or idiotic because he's saying things which don't make any sense.
March 31, 2020
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Wu Ting
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), English, French
Learning Language
English
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