Last night I was watching an episode of Lark Rise to Candleford, a period drama in the English countryside in Oxfordshire. Some people are caught poaching on the squire’s land and are being booted off by the gamekeeper. One of them wants to challenge the gamekeeper, but an old man says, “Spadging is good enough for poor people,” and they leave.
So what is “spadging”? Of course the Urban Dictionary has various seamy modern definitions, but these have nothing to do with the context of the episode.
“Spadger” is a dialectal name for a sparrow, so perhaps related to behaving like a sparrow? OED has “spadger” as a verb, too, but it seems dubious about it.
Or maybe “Spadging” would then mean “catching spadgers”. Meaning that they shouldn’t poach big game (or whatever game they were poaching,) but stick to spadger.
Okay! They were throwing a net over a hedge, to trap the little birds inside, or maybe to try to catch larger birds like pheasant or something? Maybe the old man was saying, "Okay, we won’t go after the larger birds, but surely you wouldn’t begrudge us a few sparrows, would you?
I don’t know about how it works in Oxfordshire, but where I am (California), any time I hear it, its from pan-handlers. I believe its a portmanteau for ‘spare changing’ - alas, spanging. Trying to hustle for a few coins.
