Four Lozengers

When we lived in upstate New York, I occasionally heard the word, “lozenger,” meaning a medicated drop meant to soothe sore throats and quell coughing. We lived in a college town, but the people I heard using this word weren’t teachers or students. They were usually elderly and (I assumed) less well-educated. I’d heard these same people mispronounce other words and simply thought they meant to say “lozenge.” More recently I heard the word in northern England. These people saying “lozenger” there were blue collar workers: plumbers, removers, joiners, or postmen. I thought it odd that folks with thick Yorkshire accents would mispronounce this word exactly the same way that bucolic New Yorkers did. When it turned up again in an Australian quilt book – spelled out for all the world to see – I decided to do a bit of research. As it happens, “lozenger” isn’t a mispronunciation at all. The word, R included, is very, very Old English.