pitmaticsn.

1844 Northern Star & Leeds Gen. Advertiser 8 June 5/4 They learned very little about grammar or mathematics. It was all about Pitmatics, and therefore he would address them in a plain pitmatical style. Was it to be wondered at, that Colliers should be ignorant, when they were taken in their infancy at five years of age, down into a pit.

1894 R. O. Heslop Northumberland Words Pitmatics, a jocose term for the technicalities of colliery working.

1901 ‘R. Guthrie’ Kitty Fagan 8 Pitmatics? I've been schooled in them.

1921 W. C. Blackett in H. F. Bulman & F. P. Mills Mine Rescue Work & Organization p. vi I would..earnestly advocate the study of the co-ordinated uses of all the other appliances by men with a finely-balanced sense of ‘pitmatics’.

1961 Mining Engineer Jan. 304/1 How ever could I equip myself to cope with all these—and countless other ‘pitmatics’ if and when my time ever came?

2008 E. D. Yardley & L. R. Stace Belt Conveying of Minerals iii. 38 This case history demonstrates the importance of taking account of belt properties when designing drives,..and not relying solely on traditional rules of thumb or ‘pitmatics’.