Query

[dcseain]

Is cotton a verb in your dialect of English? What about brook?

Examples:

We don't brook that [a]round here [what] we don't.
He doesn't cotton to that none too well [at all].

I ask because i used cotton in replying to a comment by a New Englander, and it struck me after the fact that she may not understand; but i know she'll ask if she can't figure it out.

Comments

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Brook isn't even a noun in my dialect.

Or rather, it is, but it describes a named phenomenon elsewhere, not a common phenomenon here (i.e. if I were telling someone where I was and I happened to be in, say, Illinois, I'd say "there's a creek running by behind me called Oak Brook" or whatever).

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Interest, especially seeing as you're from further south than i am. Though, you're from the coast, not inland, and from an area with a very strong military influence, even moreso than around here.

Run, Creek, Stream, Brook, in that order, are terms for minor river tributaries where i grew up, though Brook seems more used in Britain and New England than down here. Stream and Brook are more generic to me than Run and Creek.

I gather cotton parses in your native dialect, since you only commented negatively on brook?

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Interesting even. :)

[selki.livejournal.com]

especially seeing as you're from further south than i am. Though, you're from the coast

OTOH, so am I, and I'm aware of "brook", but I've only ever read it (not sure I've heard it out loud) in combination with "no defiance", e.g., this from India News Online, It indicates that the King will brook no defiance of his authority. (http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/nepal-deuba-detentio-9410.html)

Brook seems to me to be more of an absolute word, connected to authority, as opposed to "cotton" which is more like a general-population "like" or "warm up to" and potentially applied to lots of things. "We don't cotton to foreign cars around here."