Words You May Never Have Uttered

Today's guest post is by Brandi Creasman Watkins, aka Bonnie Sherrill. Brandi was born and raised in the mountains of western NC. After being away for nearly a decade, she returned to her hometown and spent the next decade working in victim services and social work. She retired so that she could focus on her family, Thirty-One Gifts Business and her writing. She started blogging, writing & even published her first book, Mountain Notes to Grant-Writing in 2016. She is now working on the 2nd book in this series, Mountain Notes to Parenting, while she homeschools both of her youngest children. You can find more of Brandi's writings at her blog, A Country Girl Surviving.

Words You May Never Have Uttered

You may need a passport to enter another country, but you just need an open mind and some gas to reach the South. However, you may experience the same culture shock that you would endure in the Congo or African Sahara – we have similar language barriers and mating habits. You will certainly encounter those that think you should just turn around and head back where you came from. But…just maybe, if you are in the right frame of mind, you will find us just as fascinating as the Amish, the Cherokee, New Yorkers or the Mormons.

The single defining characteristic of any foreign culture is language and for real, the Southern language should count for a language in college prep. For example:

Befuddled. Definition: confused with a hint of ignorance to the reasoning that X topic is even being discussed. Like…why do you have to discuss ear wax when you could instead discuss the ramifications of Billy Bob thinking that he could fix the leak in his house with anything other than duct tape? This word MUST accompany the gesture of scratching your head at least one time during the conversation.

Flabbergasted. Definition: shocked with a hint of anger. You may hear this when a redneck stubs his toe and blames the wife for placing the incriminating obstacle in his path. Apparently, the wife thinks that if something is static for 50 years, her husband should learn to walk around it. Whatever!

Spirits. In the south, we refer to all alcoholic beverages as ‘spirits’ because it lifts our spirits to partake. Very simple. However, southerners don’t get the whole wine connoisseur mess….we make our own wine from the fruit that God gave us…right here in our backyards. The idea that ‘wine tastings’ happen, definitely befuddle us.

Tattoos. We all run into people and ask them about their tattoos and some get very upset if we insinuate that they had a personal experience with image that they later marked themselves with because they just get tattoos. BUT, in the South, our tattoos mean something. Period. Most may say MOM, some may say F-Obama, but they all mean something to us that will still mean it tomorrow (unless we were drunk.)

Mountains. Some may believe that this is a geographical distinction or even a place where they “vacation.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. ‘Mountains’ is a way of life. It’s a religion. It’s a people.

Helldamn. Although Webster does not recognize this as a compound word, it is the only compound word that can succinctly describe something that went wrong. This something could have been intentional, stupid or just plain fate.

Waterlogged. Definition: a state of being after too many hours in the water. In the olden days, logs were transported via the rivers and they stayed in these rivers for quite some time before they reached their destination. See, our words make sense to us!

Church. Definition: The single reason to defuse any argument under the sun. This word is synonymous with the Good Book, the people attending or the very argument that you can’t win. Church is the end all, be-all in the South. You don’t wear jeans to church….ever….under any circumstances. TV Shows do not have any place in a Southern Church – no divorce, no Modern Family, no Law & Order, no Teletubbies. Criminal Minds and other murder shows would be acceptable.

Caddywompus. Definition: describes when something is askew or off-centered. For example, I have this retarded tree in my yard that has limbs that are caddywompus and drives me to the brink of a misdemeanor. I would include a picture, but I don’t want to ensue riots, because we don’t have the parking space.

Oh Fresh Hell. Definition: A new ‘alternative’ way of thinking, acting or being. A southern woman might exclaim this after seeing her teenager come downstairs in all black attire and make-up or maybe hearing her son exclaim about the newest way to talk to his girlfriend. ‘Oh Fresh Hell’ may be timeless, but the shit it explains is not – just grab a homemade wine, get flabbergasted, drag them to church in the mountains and scream a Helldamn to those that are caddywompus.

This post is brought to you by the my personal friends on Facebook! I hope you enjoyed and please let me know if you have some Southern Terms that weren’t included!

I hope you enjoyed this guest post as much as I did! Brandi and I grew up in the same small town in western NC. I tried to think back to when I first met her but if you were from Andrews, NC everybody just always knew each other. She is still just as funny as ever! She reached out to me during my last hospital stay and decided that we need to team up to share some of our posts with us both being "small town Appalachian bloggers". I look forward to working with her again and sharing more of her hilarious posts in the future

This is a pic from the area where Brandi & I grew up. Pretty, huh? 

This was taken by my friend and fellow Andrews girl, Tammy West McCoy. 

Phrases of Appalachia: Poor As Job

"Poor As Job": poverty stricken 

Ol' Joe is as poor as Job. He ain't worked in well over a year. 

This is a phrase that I know a good many of you have heard. If you're a Bible reading and believing somebody, you know all about how hard of a time poor ol' Job had. He was a righteous man and God allowed his faith to be tested by Satan. He lost his children, his health, everything he owned, and his livelihood. Through all of that, he remained faithful and his perseverance was rewarded. So to say "he/she is as poor as Job" would be comparing someone's situation to the worst of the worst. 

Over time, this phrase has been embellished to include Job's critters. "Poor as Job's turkey" is one that I've heard growing up. I'm not sure that ol' Job even knew what a turkey was but if had he belonged to Job, you can bet that he was poor. I found that some areas use "poor as Job's cat" but I don't remember hearing it around here. 

Another phrase that includes Job is "he/she has the patience of Job" and knowing what all Job went through would mean that this person was a very patient person. This is definitely one thing that me and Job do NOT have in common. I'm working on that. 

Have you heard or used these phrases where you're from? 

Phrases of Appalachia: Cooterin' Around

cooterin' around 

hanging around, doing nothing

Example: What are you doing on your 
day off? Ah, I'm just cooterin' around. 

According to Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southen Appalachian Speech Based on the Research of Horace Kephart, a cooter (noun) was a box-tortoise. "The noun is turned into a verb with an ease characteristic of the mountaineers." It is chiefly a southern Appalachian word and believed to be a Scotticism which is a phrase or word that is characteristic of dialects of the Scots language. It makes perfect sense that it would be a Scotticism since so many Scots settled in the southern Appalachian mountains. 

According to Kephart, in Our Southern Highlanders, similar terms include: broguin' about; loaferin' about; prodjectin' around; santern' about; shacklin' around; spuddin' around; and traffickin' about. .

A few more that I've heard and occasionally use:

lollygagging; dilly-dallying; dawdlin'; piddlin'; assin' around (sometimes pronounced asslin'); monkeying around; and my personal favorite and most used, fiddle farting around. 

Example: Son, I told you to turn that video game off 30 minutes ago. Now stop fiddle farting around and get ready to go! 

Appalachian vocabulary sure is colorful, ain't it? Have you heard any of these phrases in your area? Did I miss any that you've heard or still use? Let me know in the comments! 

Appalachian Words: Ary & Nary

ary (air-ee): any, anyone

Example: You got ary gas for that tractor? 

nary (nair-ee): not, none, never

Example: There's nary a drop to be found.

I must point out that ary can be used in place of nary as long as it's following a word for not. 

Example: There ain't ary a drop to be found. 

These are words that I've heard fairly often in my part of Appalachia. I can't say that they're a constant part of MY vocabulary but they do work their way in from time to time. I'd say I probably sound the most "Appalachian" when I'm angry. I can't explain why that is, it just happens. It's as if whenever something gets my blood to boilin', it triggers this reservoir of words and phrases that seem to help me get my point across with a little more fire behind them. Has that ever happened to you? Maybe it's just me.

Have you heard or used either of these words in your neck of the woods? Do they carry the same meaning? 

Voices

Today's guest post comes from WV native, Mike Ramsburg. Mike is a storyteller, poet, and fellow blogger. You can find more of his writings here. I shared a post last week about my western NC mountain accent and it reminded me of one of Mike's stories, "Voices".

Photo by Jason Rosewell via Unsplash

VOICES

Everyone in my family has a different voice.

Mama’s voice is flat and smooth, a raised flower bed where beautiful trillium and violets and bloodroot spring forth from her warm breaths. Syrup sounds like surp and darn sounds like durn. She speaks tiredly, as if all the cookin’ and cleanin’ and worshin’ and lovin’ us kids has given her a wearied disposition, and it can be heard in the way she speaks. Still, mama’s voice is lovely. It’s comforting, and full of hope.

Dad’s voice is strong, and sharp, a steel sword which escapes his mouth and pierces the air around him. His words are prolonged, as if he wants to give them a little more time to live in this world. Porch is pourch and now is nouw. His voice demands attention, and his whispers sound like the feedback on a turned down AM radio. When he’s angry, his syllables become wrath; we dare not speak back for fear of vocal retribution.

My sister — her voice. It’s like a cluster of baby tadpoles, all hurriedly swimming, the water gliding by their little bodies made of consonants and vowels. When she speaks, her words move quickly, a rapid tut-tut-tut, high pitched and seeking notice, as if she were forever singing King-Kong-Kitchie-Kitchie-Ki-Me-O. Like is lyeuk and used is youst. Her voice is heartening in its familiarity, though her constant whirlwind of words — a machine gun of vocal bullets which never seems to run out — is the bane of my present reality.

Then there’s me. My voice. An ebb and flow of broken words, rising and falling and rising again like a string of mountains with barren trees, brown and dying at autumn’s end, no sign of beauty remaining. My mouth opens and out pops a word and each set of vowels-turned-diphthong slides up the vocal scale and shatters haltingly, ending each word higher than it first began. Not that it was always this way. Once my voice was smooth and steady, a flowing creek that I could splash merrily in. Mama says this too will pass, it’s just a part of growing up. That I am developing — that’s the word she uses — progressing earlier than my peers. That the other boys will soon sound like me.

I have a hard time believing her. I know it to be true that every voice is different. What if mine decides to permanently stay in this vocal purgatory, never reaching its final destination? What if I am forever endowed with a larynx that can’t quite make up its mind whether it wants to produce sound at high or low frequencies? What I want is a voice like dads — strong, and sharp, steady and prolonged. A voice that doesn’t get ridiculed in school.

What I want is a voice of my own.

I hope you enjoy this creative nonfiction piece that is a part of Mike's series on coming of age in rural Appalachia. You can find more of the series here. 

I Like The Way You Talk

"I like the way you talk." That's something that several people have told me throughout my life. You never really notice that you even have an accent until you leave home. 

I went to New York City after my senior year of high school on a church mission trip. Talk about culture shock! I had been to several large cities before the trip including Atlanta, Oklahoma City, & Minneapolis but none compared to New York. Everything was so FAST. The city was like an active beehive 24/7. We did street ministry in many different areas and spoke to hundreds of people. You would think that they were speaking another language. Their accent combined with the sheer speed of speaking took quite some processing. It would take me a good 5-10 seconds for whatever was being said to register in this mountain mind of mine. I'm sure they were thinking that they wish I would just hurry and spit out whatever it was I was trying to say too. 

A few months later, I went off to college in north east Georgia (Toccoa Falls College). Never would I have imagined that my accent would be such a big part of my identity. Apparently, I had been turning my one syllable name (Kim) into two (Ki-um) and I had no idea. Let me tell ya, everyone let me know about it.  One of my good friends was a guy from Canada and we had the biggest laughs when we hung out. I mean this guy ended most questions with "eh?" and tried to convince me that a toboggan was a sled instead of a sock hat that you wear on your head. Funny, huh? 

When I would come in from school, I would bring some of my friends with me so they could get some of my Granny's cooking and realize what they had been missing their whole lives. They all usually enjoyed the food and the hospitality of my grandparents but boy did they laugh at the things we'd say. Most wanted to know exactly where is yonder and just what is a yuns. 

Several of my friends were from the Raleigh area and I was amazed at how much of a difference just a few hours could make in our different dialects. People in the mountains have a dialect that is unique and not all people in NC sound the same. One of my biggest pet peeves is how outsiders tend to associate ignorance with our mountain dialect. Stereotypes are hard to be broken but I assure you that some of the smartest people you could ever know say yuns & yonder. 

I was reminded again of just how country I can sound while my brother, The Mater Hater, was over at my house this past Christmas. We had been talking about living self-sufficiently when I said, "There will be a lot of people in trouble if we ever lose power for a long period of time." He looked at me and laughed and pointed out that I said pire (rhymes with fire) for power. I didn't even notice. He's getting a little uppity if you ask me. ;)

Phrases of Appalachia: Fair to middlin'

A conversation that I had with my son today...

Son: How are you feeling, mom?

Me: Ah, fair to middlin'.

Son: *blink, blink*

Me: Fair to middlin'....it means so-so, average, okay.

Son: Then why didn't you just say average.

Me: *blink, blink*

I figured that if he didn't know what it meant then there might be a few of you who didn't know either. Just like many words that end with -ing in Appalachia, middling got whittled down to just middlin'.

"Middling is and old Scots word and has been in use since at least the 15th century with the same meaning as now, that is, 'of medium or moderate size, strength, quality." - phrases.org

Middling is a term used by farmers to identify the quality of products such as flour, sugar, produce, and cotton. For cotton, the specific grades ran from the best quality (fine), through good, fair, middling and ordinary to the least good (poor), with a number of intermediates, one being middling fair. 

While the phrase is still used this way, it has also worked its way into everyday conversation. It is a phrase that I hear and use quite often.

Have you ever heard or used this phrase? 

What would you like the world to know about the REAL Appalachia?

If possible, what one thing would your want the world to know about the REAL Appalachia as opposed to what the media chooses to portray about the area?

I would like everyone to know that having a slow, southern Appalachian accent does not mean the speaker is automatically ignorant or uneducated. Making fun of the way I speak is a surefire way of getting my dander up. I don't think there is many things more beautiful than hearing an educated southerner speak.

What would you like the world to know? Please let me know in the comment section below. I'm working on a future blog post and would love to share some of your responses!

Phrases of Appalachia: Lo And Behold

Today's phrase, lo and behold, is one that is used frequently by my Granny. It seems that she can't tell a story without throwing a "lo and behold" in here and there. It's a phrase that you use when you want to express that you couldn't quite believe that something happened. 

Example: The weatherman said we were going to get a good snow and that we needed to make sure we were prepared. I decided to go to town to get a few things and, lo and behold, there wasn't a loaf of bread to be found for 30 miles!

This is a great phrase to use when you're trying to exaggerate a point in a story that you're telling. It helps express your excitement a little better. 

According to phrases.org, the origin of the complete phrase is first recorded in an 1808 letter in the Correspondence 1787-1870, of Queen Victoria's lady of bedchamber - Lady Sarah Spencer Lyttlelton: 

"Hartington...had just told us how hard he had worked all the morning...when, lo and behold! M. Deshayes himself appeared."

Now, thanks to Granny, several of us are using the term in everyday conversations. We all like to talk *ahem* and tell stories when we're all together and we like them to be as exciting as possible. I believe my Dad and his brothers like to try to outdo each other once they get started. They can't hold a candle to Granny or Pa though. Granny also usually ends her stories with "and that's the end of that bear tale!". 

Have you heard this phrase used in your neck of the woods?

Phrases Of Appalachia: Are you peart?

peart-  (adjective) lively; brisk; cheerful

Chiefly Southern and Midland; first known use: circa 1520

Examples:

The fathers of other "peart boys" cleared their throats uneasily,

 but offering contradiction."  The Young Mountaineers by Charles Egbert Craddock

He uster be chipper, an' peart, an' clost frens with me; 

an' now he don't saynothin. A Pessimist by Robert Timsol 

Peart is a word that I've heard for most of my life. When I was younger I asked my Granny what it meant and she said, "I don't directly know the real definition of it but I use it when I'm meaning to ask if you're feeling well and happy." 

Granny asked me if I was peart today and I didn't waste a second when giving her my answer. I'm getting ready to spend my fifth night, back to back,  in the hospital. Chronic pancreatitis is the opposite of peart.

Have you ever heard anyone use "peart"? Does it fit how you're feeling this Saturday?