Flower and Flight
Flock, ffight, flower—may they all mean much the same thing, at least in local speech? The question is suggested by a recent experience in the use of rural words. A youngish agricultural labourer who was ploughing with a tractor (which at the best is a hard and bumpy machine when used on hard and bumpy ground) grew almost lyrical on the merits of oat " flower " for the stuffing of the cushion which saved him from the harshness of the bumps. He explained that you could not use barley (which, of course, is apt to be "barbed "), and that wheat flower was poor stuff in comparison. Some while ago--and doubtless still—oat flower, a perfectly accurate description, was in constant use in cottages for the stuffing of mattresses and pillows, but the technical word in common use was not " flower " but "flight." The words suggest " flock " in the sense of wool and other stuffing, but flock like flower has a Latin derivation, and flight a Saxon. How flight came into this particular meaning perhaps some student of our rural philology will explain.
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