FEW, IF ANY people in Cornwall are fluent speakers of the Cornish language. However, one word of this language is still in common usage. That word is ‘dreckly’. When I first noticed it outside a shop we drove past, I imagine the word meant ‘directly’.

Today, we were sitting in Dollies on Molesworth Street in Wadebridge – one of our favourite cafés in Cornwall – when I spotted a notice which read:

“All meals prepared fresh to order – dinner comes dreckly…”

I asked the owner’s son, who works in the place, about the meaning of ‘dreckly’. He told me that it is a very useful word, which means roughly ‘in the future’. If something or somebody is coming dreckly, that can mean its arrival might be in a few minutes, or a few hours, or a few days, or maybe never at all. 

As I am always keen on checking information I have gathered, I looked up ‘dreckly’ on the Internet, and discovered that my informant had been quite accurate. According to urbandictionary.com:

“Dreckly is something that you will get around to at some point in the future, possibly never.”

And another source (Wikipedia) confirms this:

 “Dreckley / Dreckly – at some point in the future; soon, but not immediately; like ‘mañana’, but less urgent.”

So, now I am satisfied about the meaning and usage of the word.

I will endeavour to learn some more words of Cornish … dreckly!