# Spuggy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [March 31, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092 "2000-03-31T19:50:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/1 "2000-03-31T19:50:00Z")
Cecil’s bafflement at “spuggy” in the [“Classic” column on “Ollie, ollie, &c.”](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a900622a.html) can be easily remedied. See the poem “Briggflatts” by the British (Northumbrian) poet Basil Bunting: its epigraph is “The spuggies are fledged.” Bunting’s note: “little sparrows”. --N
---
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2000, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/2 "2000-04-01T00:02:00Z")
So what does “fledged” mean? Does this poet use only obscure English words unknown outside of the UK?
---
### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2000, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/3 "2000-04-01T00:15:00Z")
fledge[[\< ME flegge, ready to fly \< OE (un)flycge, (un)fledged, akin to MHG vlucke , MDu vlugghe]] to grow the feathers necessary for flying.
1 to rear (a young bird) until it is able to fly .
2 to supply or adorn with or as if with feathers or down; specif., to fit (an arrow, etc.) with feathers.
---
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2000, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/4 "2000-04-01T00:30:00Z")
hence “fledgling” - a young bird that can’t fly yet.
---
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2000, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/5 "2000-04-01T01:31:00Z")
Thank you, UncleBeer, for your full-fledged answer.
---
### Author:  [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2000, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spuggy/1092/6 "2000-04-02T06:12:00Z")
I see that “fledged” has already gotten a gloss; but just to follow up a different point: Bunting’s use of dialect-words is meant to insist that the history and language of the UK is highly plural and particular–“spuggy” would be just as opaque to a Londoner as it is to you or me in North America. One wonders where in the UK Cecil’s example using “spuggy” was collected–presumably northern England.
Incidentally Bunting’s line is a translation of a line of Italian which he also quotes–I forget the source but maybe Cavalcanti?–“Son los pasariellos del mal pelo exidos”. --N