appalachian sayings help my time

Chitter, Morgan, and Chatter – 4th Grade Martins Creek Elementary

help my time interjection A mild exclamation of surprise.
1924 Spring Lydia Whaley 2 Well help my time. 1993 Ison and Ison Whole Nuther Lg 29 = an expression used as a soft exclamation. 1996 Montgomery Coll. (Cardwell).

Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English

———————

Last week one of the girls’ elementary teachers was cleaning off her computer and found the photo above and sent it to me. When I saw it I said “Help my time wasn’t that just yesterday? How did they grow up so dadjimmed fast!”

Help my time is a saying of exclamation that is still very common in my area of Appalachia.

Tipper

Similar Posts

21 Comments

  1. Just heard Andy Griffith say, “That’s the time!” to Opie, and tried to look it up. When I was a kid in Brevard, NC in the ’60s, we used to say, “Day, help my time!” Griffith also says that in one episode. I’ve never heard it anywhere else outside Western NC. I’d love to know how it originated.

  2. Well lookee there! My how them youngins have growed since then! I can remember when they was just teeny little things. Plump little dumplins is what they was. They shore got over that did’n they? Sprouted up and took off up the bean pole did’n they?
    Actually my “twins” are twenty years apart and different sexes. I wish we could have had identical twins like yours but if wishes were fishes we’d all live in Brasstown!
    Yes, that’s did’n, not didn’t. The “t” at the end is a waste of letters, is’n it?

  3. Tipper,
    Good luck to all of you at Vogal State Park in Blairsville tonight. I know the crowd will be pleased with Chitter and Chatter’s singing and their witty comments. …Ken

  4. Tipper,
    Lordy, the things we experienced when our kids were young! When we lived in Atlanta, my oldest girl would say the word “po-toe-chen” for washing powders and “dodge-e-dodgin” for band aid. Funny how you remember certain things.
    Got a question for you — Why did Cleopatra always say “no?” Because she was Queen of Denile. …Ken

  5. I came up only a couple of ridges, a couple of creeks and a couple of decades away from where you was raised but can’t remember ever having heard the feeling being phrased in exactly that way. Most of the time our expressions are right in sync but that one just slud right by me. Dadgummit!

  6. That one’s new to me! But it’s the perfect response to the picture. It goes so fast — babies one day,
    adults the next. Sigh.

  7. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to dress those sweet girls in similar attire and hairstyles and go back to that school and restage that photo! Every teacher needs a “then and now” wall somewhere in their room!
    As for the phrase, “help my time!”, that’s a new one for me but makes a lot of sense considering in general how fast things seem to be changing these days – or is that perception just impressed more firmly on us as we get older?

  8. Dadjim is also an term I haven’t heard in a while. It was in pretty common usage in my youth. They both are very expressive.

  9. Help my time must mean the same thing as well, forevermore. I have never heard the saying in my part of Appalachia.
    The girls are so pretty-then and now!

  10. You did it again. Very familiar and yet I cannot recall when I heard it or used it last. That worries me a bit in that it seems to indicate an increasing distance from my roots. But I’m glad you do it, else I wouldn’t know.

  11. Well, help my time for sure! Pretty little girls all grown up now. I know that expression well, heard it, used it and it sure fits the picture!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *