I don’t have any sayings from Suzann and her mother today, but I do have a word.
The other night Suzann asked me if I knew the word pintly (sounds like pin-tlee) which means small and sickly or weak.
I looked in all my Appalachian books and couldn’t find it.
Suzann and her mother say the word and her husband who also grew up in Hayesville says the word too.
Have you ever heard anyone use pintly to mean small, weak, or sickly?
Thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts! Ken’s surgery went well!! Please continue to pray for him and his family.
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Could the word be pently? Seems I have heard the word referring to the condition of someone who has been sickly and unable to get out of the house. I’ve know people like that. There skin was always white, taut and shiny. They have little muscle tone. Their eyes were weak (don’t know how to describe that look). Gaunt might be a another definition. Or emaciated. Someone who’s been in prison, an asylum or hospital for a long time or who has been starved. Pent means penned or confined. Maybe pently is how they look after they have been pent up for a long time.
A few others to research: Don’t get your panties/bloomers in a wad, Who licked the red off your candy (refers to when peppermint sticks only had the red stripe on the surface.) and What got your dander up?
Prayers going out for Ken and his family.
The word our family used was peaked (peak-ed). They lived in the upper west corner of N.C., in the highest mountains. Their, and my, accents are like the Scots. When I lived out of the US for a number of years all my foreign friends guessed I was from Scotland. They said they could more easily understand what I said than they could understand other Americans.
I could have said to them, “Welcome to the club! I have to use closed captions to watch movies set in NJ!”
No, cant say I have.
Glad to hear Ken Roper’s surgery went well. If you don’t mind my asking, what surgery did he undergo?
BTW: never heard “pintly” but, like Anna Lee, I thought there might be a connection to “spindly”.
I believe I may have heard it as “pindley”.
I’ve heard puny and peaked. Maybe it is another way of saying one of those words, or it could be just another word for the same condition.
Haven’t heard that one, but like others have heard and used peak-ed -peaked whichever is the correct spelling… we have also used the word puny ( not as less than normal size ,but as referring to weak.)
Nope, never heard “pintly”, just ‘puny’. Have heard ‘pint’ for “point” as in “I was out on the pint of the ridge looking down into No Business.” Not close but I have heard “plime” as in “He looked me plime blank in the eye and told me a big lie.”
Maybe “pintly” is a family word.
Tipper–That’s new to me. Poorly, puny, or punyish are the descriptions with which I’m familiar.
Jim Casada
Glad the surgery went well! You dry garlic in the shuck and keep it like potatoes. That sounds like a combination of sickly and small.
Joe, I’ve heard peaked all my life, right here in the mountains.
Do you think pintly might have morphed over time from spindly? Because that I have heard for that usage.
He’s lookin’ peaked……peak-ed….
Can someone tell me how to store home grown garlic?
Dang spell check, should be pintly .
That’s a new word for me. I have heard “peakid” , but jointly is new to me. Maybe peaked is the East TN. version. Lol
Joe… thems fightin words now!. Being born and family still there in East TN, we’ve always said pekid or puny.
Good to hear the surgery went well. This is a new word for me, never heard it before, we use the word puunny, not sure how to spell it, just spell it like you say it. Man, for some reason I feel puunny today.