A good while back Blind Pig reader Lorie Thompson left the following comment:
I read your blog with delight! Your Appalachian sayings surprise me, since I did not know most of them are specific to this area. It is just the way we have always talked. How about “ooshie”?
I emailed Lorie and said “Ooshie means cold to me is that what it means to you?” She was in agreement-that’s what the word means to her too.
I checked for ooshie in my various Appalachian word dictionaries and found nothing. Then I did a quick google. I found ooshie in the manner that Lorie and I are familiar with on this page. In addition, I discovered that ooshie is also a high end fashion line-who knew?
I thought ooshie was a word that was only used for cold around Granny and Pap’s house, but Lorie’s comment and the website word list made me realize the word usage must be more common than that.
How about you – does ooshie = cold?
Tipper
Reading old posts and came upon this one. We most surely do use “ooshie”! In fact, if it is REALLY cold, we say, “OOSHIE BOOSHIE”! (From the other side of the TN border from you all.)
Have used it here in Northwest Alabama all my life. But my husband, from Northeast Alabama, had never heard it until we met.
I know I am late to this discussion but the word “ooshie” and “oosh” were frequently used for cold around my house. It was so common that I didnt realize other people had no idea what I was saying.
Mountaincat-thank you for the comment! Good to know you used ooshie in your family too 🙂
Betzy-thank you for the comment! I didn’t make Chatters hat but Granny did : ) Have a great day!!
Interesting!!!
I’ve never heard the word ooshie before, in NC or in any of the other states I lived in.
Looks like your prayers for snow might get answered this weekend in the NC mountains. I pray everyone stays safe and warm during them.
God bless.
RB
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I’m lost on this one, never heard it.. and I vote no Snow this year except on T.V..
I don’t think I have heard the word ooshie.Most of the words on the vocabulary tests are pretty much the same as us country folks around here use. Sometimes I will see one that I am not familiar with ,or maybe just barely remember my dad saying it.My mom,who is 84,will say a word occasionally that kind of “stumps” me.When someone tells her something that shocks or surprises her,she will say”well,I swonney!” I have always wondered how that word came about.
The snow picture of Chatter is beautiful! Maybe you all will get some snow soon.
Yes, very ooshie here and more snow on the way. Sure wish we could send you some, we certainly have more than enough to share! Hope you get your snow wish soon.
I just told my daughter in law that 73 was ooshie for Arizona and it is going to be real ooshie tonight, around 62, I am originally from Southern Kentucky and heard ooshie all my life, meaning really cold…Chuck, Maricopa,AZ.
I have used the word ooshie all my life, I told my daughter in law that it’s ooshie in Arizona tonight at 73 degrees and it is going to be real ooshie tonight at 62, meaning really cold.
They say cats have 9 lives, so that means 9 deaths unless they are still on their last life, which means 8 or 9 funerals wouldn’t be unreasonable. You might want to consider a mausoleum though, unless you just like digging in the dirt.
On late, but just had to post on that beautiful picture. That is a beautiful picture of Chatter, and possibly the prettiest picture I have seen on here. She is definitely modeling material, and love that toboggan.
Now for the word “ooshie.” I have never heard the word said in southern West Virginia, but have heard old timers say many of the words you mention. We are very used to the cold here in Winter, as it seems that weatherman always shows those cold fronts dipping right down and grabbing WV.
Oh! Goshie Washie! I wish I could attend the Folk School BEGINNING Story telling sessions with Keith! But weather prevents us hitting the roads!
Eva Nell
Tipper,
I misspelled a word in my comment this morning. Should have been spelled phrase and not prase. Sorry. Still ” ooshie” here and raining but feels like snow may be on the way.
Peggy L.
Peggy L. – I loved your story about the cat’s death and the numerous funerals! It made me laugh!
P.S. I never heard ooshie used before but it’s a great word. I think I may have to start using it if it ever gets cold enough.
Don’t know the term – but then, maybe it doesn’t get cold enough in these parts for such a word. . . .
Did you make Chatter’s hat? I love it.
I have never heard that word! Thank you for that beautiful winter picture of such a beautiful young lady!
Tipper,
I called into the Party Line today and Donna Lynn asked if I’d like to go on Party Line. I said “no”, I want to request a song. She said “What do you want to hear?”
To which I said “My Heart’s in Brasstown” and she interrupted me and said “I Love that one and it’s by Chitter and Chatter.”
WKRK is worldwide on the Internet at : http://www.country.am …Ken
Tipper,
When first stepping outside in the winter, my Mother usually said….Oooooo, she’s cold outside this morning!”….Now then, maybe all along she was saying “ooshie” ! Followed by “COLD, outside this morning!” ha
We also said if it was just beginning to get cold of a’evenin’….”It’s gettin’ a little “air-ish!”
Love the picture! Just beautiful, all of it!
Thanks Tipper,
I have heard the word used as you do. It was also used by tween girls to describe something or somebody they considered repulsive. Since both cold and gross things tend to elicit one, I have always assumed that ooshie was a descriptive word for a shiver. Kinda like a more feminine form of brrrr. The colder or more disgustion the situation, the more o’s you put in oooshie.
Ever heard oosh gosh?
I think this is an example of how your plan to add sound clips to word questions would come in handy!
I remember Mother saying “Ooshie!” Usually followed by, “Shut that danged door!”
Tipper,
We must be living on the right side of the mountain.
“Ooshie has always been used in our part of the woods when it is cold. I never hear younger children saying it, mostly all older folks like me and one of my sisters.
We also had this prase when we were playing or wanted to play we would always say “Lets play like .”
Well, the cat died and we had to bury it. We had to have a preacher. A person we dearly loved that lived in our other house was a preacher and they had two sons who played with us. We got the sons to preach that cats funeral. Everyday we dug that cat up and they preached the service and sang again and we did that till it got so ripe we had to stop. We could always entertain our self and friends. We had no cell phones or games like kids have today. The sons have passed on and every time I think back on this I smile and then laugh.
Thanks Tipper for jogging my brain this morning. It is “Ooshie and raining here today.”
Peggy L.
Tipper,
That’s a nice picture of the Snow and Chatter sure is beautiful standing there with Granny’s Crocheted Hat. I bet Chitter is out there too, making a Snowball for someone. She’s more fiesty, but gorgeous too.
I wish it would Snow! I remember when I was little, standing in front of the old cookstove waiting for it to heat up and mama saying “oochie.” Gosh, she was a tough woman and never complained much, heck she had to be, with six sons and no girls. But she loved being “mama” to us boys…Ken
Terrific photo. Background: cold, white stillness. Foreground: warm, colorful vitality.
That’s a new one to me. Airish is a word I grew up with. And if it was a cold wind it was said to cut you like a knife. My dad would say on a cold day that you can tell where your drawers come too. Stay dry…it’s raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock here!
Never heard “ooshie” . Can’t imagine what it’s derivation might be. Pretty pic. Kinda Zach Brown look with the toboggan.
Never heard ooshie. I was about to question the location of the snow in the picture when you explained it was taken last year. The weathermen are watching a system that will be headed our way on or around the 23rd. They said it would be a very heavy snow or rain maker. I’m sick of all the rain! Doesn’t Mother Nature know it’s January?
Never heard of “oushie”. We often said ‘airish’ to either deliberately understate a bitter cold or to accurately describe a moderate cold. That reminds me of Jamer Herriot, the Yorkshire vet, writing that Yorkshire folks would say “thin wind” for the kind that blows right through you.
I expect there are a few words or expressions most anywhere that are really local and arose from some unique combination of circumstance.
As a side note, I love to go tramping in snowy woods when everything seems hushed and kind of closed in.
New to me, but what a beautiful knit cap. What we called stocking caps in Missouri, but boggans here? Just found out on line that boggan comes from toboggan. Words and their migrations and transformations; don’tcha just love em?
We didn’t always say “OOSHIE” –which did mean cold–but we shortened it to OOSH! Meaning really cold!
And we sometimes said “Ooshie, gooshie” together for anything unpleasant or meaning we should do something about it! If cold when we were to go out, put on more clothing, or galoshes if muddy, snowy or frosty!
And “Oosh!” was usually followed by going back inside to the fire to get warm again!
Thanks for listing my son Keith Jones’s class on Beginning Storytelling at the Campbell Folk School the weekend of February 5-7. If you want to learn how to spin tales, I recommend his class! He might even tell a story with “Oooshie, gooshie” in it!
Never heard ooshie. Sounds squishie to me
Nope, not something I every remember hearing ooshie. Yep, that’s some pretty girl!
Pronounced oouzie!!! around here and yep- COLD
The photo above is definitely a keeper. Chatter is a beauty as well as her sister. The word ‘ooshie’ is a new one for me. Keep those words coming; I love the learning!
I never heard the term “ooshie”. If it had appeared on the Appalachian Vocabulary Test, I probably would have guessed something like soft and “squishy”.
“ooshie” I had never heard!
On the one hand, I don’t think I have ever heard the word ooshie.
On the other hand, I have seen both the girl and the location in the photo, but my, oh, my, what a wonderful shot and what a beautiful girl.