pjarn

/pjɑːrn/

noun· region: north-noemic, rural· frequency: rare· first recorded: 1888

a small, unanswerable letter — written without expectation of reply, kept because the writing was the work.

from pjar (a folded piece of paper) with the diminutive -n. the rural sense narrows further: a pjarn is written, sealed, and either sent with no return address or kept in a drawer. the postmasters' ledgers from the 1890s record bundles of pjarns held under indefinite delivery.

"i wrote her a pjarn after the funeral; i did not post it. the writing did what the letter could not." — from a diary, 1962

"there is a drawer in this house entirely of pjarns. they smell of the years they were written, not of paper." — overheard, the basement

field note · l.m., 1978 a pjarn is not the same as an unsent letter: the unsent letter was meant to be sent and was held back. the pjarn was never going to leave. it is, the dialect insists, a complete object on the day it is written.