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My aunt used to use this of babies. The only time I have encountered it in print is in Samuel Crossman's hymn "My Song Is Love Unknown": "But men made strange, and none / The longed-for Christ would know." But Crossman was English, and referring to adults. Maybe he had heard the expression from Irish folk?
ReplyDeleteI too am familiar with it from the hymn, one of my faves. It was current in British English formerly, but became archaic,, surviving only in Canada and Ireland.
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