Say rabbit rabbit the first day of the month before you speak to anyone and you will have good luck all month.
We still call the last meal of the day supper. Dinner is at 12 o’clock.
Some of the words I heard growing up and still use some of them today. A cardboard box is called a pasteboard box. Mom uses that a lot. The basement was called under the floor. We don’t fold our clothes, we say doubling up our clothes. We say changing our bed clothes, not our bed linen.
—Diane
I’ve read about the rabbit rabbit trick for having good luck, but have never heard anyone say it, nor remembered to say it myself.
If you watch my videos you’ll know we call the evening meal supper and the noon day meal dinner.
Granny still says pasteboard box, but I say cardboard.
I’ve never heard of doubling clothes, but it makes sense, as does under the floor for basement. I have heard folks say under the floor for a storage area that isn’t quite a full basement, but have never heard anyone call a basement under the floor.
Language is so interesting to me. So many changes in the way we speak since Granny was a girl and even since I was a girl.
Thank you Diane for sending me a bit about your family!
Last night’s video: My Appalachian Memoir 10.
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I guess this would qualify as an old saying. During Christmas holidays as I grew up, I heard members of my dad’s side of the family greet each other by saying “Christmas Gift.” Each would struggle to say it first. In older days, the loser had to give the winner a gift. In later years, the one saying it first would laugh uproariously and just brag about saying it first. My older brother is in his early 80s. He has called me over the years on Christmas Day and would greet me by saying “Christmas Gift.”
Have any of you heard of or experienced this? Does anyone know the origin?
My paternal grandparents lived in a very rural area of East TN. They are of English/Irish heritage. My dad and his siblings called their mother Mam. I know this is common in Ireland.
I’m so enjoying being a part of this group. I live in extreme Southwestern VA, deep in Appalachia. I love to learn and share regarding our Appalachian ways. When I was in college, I heard a speaker, Cretis Williams, talk about how we Appalachians speak and of our love for the sound of the letter « r. ». My older brother and I laugh about the following: We had an aunt and uncle that everyone called Emmer and Ary. We were so shocked to learn that their names were Emma and Ira.
Here’s hoping that you, Tipper, and all your family are richly blessed in the years ahead and that we, your followers, continue to be blessed by all that you share with us.
Brenda-thank you! Granny’s family observed the tradition of saying Christmas Gift 🙂 And we still say it today.
We have a cellar and say lunch and supper. If I use dinner, I mean lunch. But my sister caved to modern usage here and says dinner instead of supper. (New England)
Hubby & I argue about lunch/dinner/supper. In my family, dinner was the midday meal (on my dad’s side, anyway), as they were a dairy farming family. You got up did early milking/chores & came in for breakfast. Then you went out to work again. The midday meal was when everyone stopped working & came in for the heartiest meal of the day – Dinner, and a little snooze/rest. Then you did late milking/chores and came in for supper around 7pm. That was supper. It was light; soup, sandwich, leftovers, etc…It is much healthier for you to eat this way, if you can. It gives you the whole day to burn off those midday calories and a little rest to digest them. We eat this way, because my husband has always worked 2nd shift. I call it dinner, but he tries to call it lunch. On the weekends, when I am serving sandwiches at noon, then I call it lunch! My dad always says, ” you can call me anything you want, but late to dinner”.
“Spindly”
I wouldn’t sit in that chair……looks awful “Spindly” to me!
She’s such a “Spindly” little thing……needs some fattening up.
I remember my Grandmother ( passed away 20 yrs ago) always referred to the refrigerator as the “ice box”.
Happy new year
Just the other day I was throwing out cardboard boxes from Christmas and remembered that Momma used to call them pasteboard boxes. She also told me to double up my clothes as well. Pasteboard, waste basket, poke, floor boards, dish rag, oh how I miss Momma! ❤️
Happy New Year to you and your family Tipper, and to all the Blind Pig and Acorn people! What a wonderful kinship we share along with lots of good memories. I’m so glad to be part of this group. It brings me smiles, tears, happiness, and something to look forward to every day. Thank you for all you do busy Tipper!!! May the New Year bring more happiness, good health, and showers of blessings from Above.
I still will sometimes say plasterboard for cardboard and frequently say dinner to mean the mid day meal. Although, that later one was probably much more common a generation ago. The younger generation usually will say lunch for the mid day meal even if they still say supper for the last meal of the day. And of course anyone that didn’t grow up in the south just doesn’t understand calling lunch dinner at all.
I don’t have a basement. I have a crawl space. Not only do I have to crawl to move around under there I also encounter other things that crawl. Snails, spiders, snakes and worms! Also spider webs galore, dryer lint and ancient sawdust from when they built the house. I haven’t found any skeletons yet but I’m sure there are some down there. I’m getting too old and feeble for spelunking so if something has to be repaired, I have to send Dusty in there. Dusty is deathly afraid of spiders but he faces his fears and enters the abyss alone!
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How do you make a paragraph in a comment here? Mine all run together and make my already awful writing look horrendous.
UUUGGGHHH! crawl spaces! We have one under the house’s two front rooms. They were added on in 1898, so there is only a cellar in the original part. The cellar is too short for me to stand straight up in & I’m only 5’6″. My husband has had to Brave the crawl space and he can keep right on doing it. Ain’t never gettin’ me to go under there. Spiders. My dad used to go under there, too (I grew up in this house) and he is deathly afraid of spiders. One dropped down into his open mouth. Terrible. We have crawl spaces in the house proper, too. they didn’t have an attic or closets. I hate them. You must take everything out of the front to get to anything that you put in the back. Old houses. sigh…..
Regarding New Years meals we always have some kind of Pork, Saur Kraut and Mashed Potatoes. Mom said it was important to begin the year by Rooting for a living like a pig rather that to Scratch for a living like a chicken.
Tipper and all of my fellow “Acorns” I’m wishing you and yours a New Year that brings good health, prosperity and much love.
MY 6 year old grandson said I was born in the olden days, a long time ago, since I use supper instead of dinner. He will just have to adjust to saying supper. He seems to enjoy the meals. Love you Tipper, read you every day.
Never heard Rabbit Rabbit for good luck. I know the lady I take care if, the other day she was telling me her dad died from Rabbit fever. They ate a bad Rabbit. Her mom lived through it and so did she and her brother. I also say tin foil.
We still use dinner and supper, and I rarely run into any confusion about it now that I’m back home.
In my immediate family we call the basement a ‘root cellar’ because my grandmother had one dug under her house. She kept vegetables and canned food there. I always enjoyed it when she went down to get something. I considered it a secret room and regarded it as an adventure. She would lift the long trap door in the hall leading from the kitchen to the bathroom, wedge a two-by-four against it, and I would follow her down the creaky, wooden steps into the cool dark. She would yank the string for the light and reveal the earthen walls, wooden shelves, and bins. I was always pleased to be allowed to choose and carry a jar back to the kitchen.
We are getting ready for the New Year tonight: dragging out every noisy pot and pan I have to scare away bad luck and spirits, fixing our preferred traditional New Year food: hoppin’ john – our neighbors down the road always bring sauerkraut (whew!), the widower around the hill always brings fried potatoes. The luckiest person from this year will be busy, as she will be tasked with being the first person to enter the house of everyone in our tiny community, to bring good luck to each household for the new year. Lucky for her there aren’t many of us up here. HA!
All of these things I learned from my grandmother.
I’ve heard so many of these sayings and use some of them also. If you were to invite me to eat dinner with you, I would come at 12pm. Supper is our nighttime meal. My husband’s grandma was quite superstitious and here were a few of her sayings: It was bad luck to wash clothes on New Year’s Day. The first person that came to your house on New Year’s Day had to be a man and that would bring you good luck, or a phone call that morning had to be a man so my husband’s family lived close to each other, and he said every year his granddaddy would show up that morning to wish them a Happy New Year. The tradition continued and now our son will call us, or his dad will call him. His grandma also said it was bad luck for a man to lay his hat on a bed on New Year’s Day. I guess she had heard these all her life because she really believed them, in addition to eating, black eye peas, and greens for money. Tipper, I loved last night’s reading and I also have heard about the snake handling and talking in tongues and the moonshine also. It’s a wonderful memoir.
Happy New Year to you and all of your wonderful family!
I have a friend that is like a sister to me. She told me that she learned in home economics in school that historically that “dinner” was the “big” meal of the day whether it was eaten at 12 noon or 6 in the evening.
Back home in Tennessee and at present here in Alabama I call 12 p lunch and 6p supper. Growing up I’ve heard 12 p used as “dinner”. I HATE calling supper – dinner. When someone from a large city calls supper dinner it’s like they are “putting on the dog” or acting biggoty.
My hubby’s people always called the midday meal “dinner” and it always confused me because my parents people called it “lunch” for two very different reasons. On my dad’s side it’s because his people were more city folks and that’s what they called it”. My mom’s people were country folks so they called it dinner because most her men people worked in the coal mines and they had to carry big buckets to but their food in to cover two meals so they called it a “Dinner Bucket”, but the men ate some at mid morning and some in early evening since they worked from sun up to sun down. When my mom married my dad she started calling midday meal lunch and evening meal dinner because dad corrected her about it. She didn’t want us kids growing up confused so she just called it like my dad did, plus that’s what the schools taught. She told us the difference between the two meals because when we visited her people in the country she knew we would be confused. It was like learning a secret language when we visited my mom’s people.
Speaking of so many changes in language since granny was a girl, or we were girls…
It is a little concerning to me where it’s going (in general, worldwide). I don’t get the abbreviation of sayings or shortening of words. I don’t know what half of them are and have to try to figure it out. Also, it amazes me the misspelled words in a news article or on tv. Also, the lack of proper, basic that we were all taught in school, grammar by newscasters and reporters and people who are suppose to be examples (or, were in the old days).
Sandra, that drives me crazy, too. Apparently the basic rules of grammar have not been taught or were not learned. When I hear, “Me and …., Her and me…. “ etc. it sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Diane must be from my hometown. All the old sayings are nowhere close to being old around here. We had bed clothes but our quilts and blankets were known as bed covers or kivers as my granny would say. Every piece of clothes got ironed, doubled up, and put in a press or chifferobe. The press had a curtain for a door and no lite bub to help us see where the shelves were.
My grandmother, who was from South Carolina, always served the largest meal of the day around midday. She called it dinner. Supper was the evening meal and was much lighter. Any meal at her house was delicious.
My family has said, “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” on New Years Day for decades. A tradition my great-grandfather had us do.
Happy New Year to the Blind Pig family and friends! You all sure make for a lively conversation and lots of things to ponder on and try out! I just love it here, Tipper! Thank you for all the entertainment and interesting things which never stop! I don’t know how you do it, but I’m so glad you do! What a mighty fine lady you are!!! Btw, if the “rabbit rabbit” thing really worked, we would all do it. It’s kind of like when I was little I thought sparkles in snow were diamonds and if I could somehow catch them, I’d be rich! Lol
I say “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first day of every month. Not sure it works but I love old sayings. Happy New Year to you and all your family.
If you cain’t stand up, it’s under the floor, if you can it’s the cellar.
I can remember my late Granny asking the girl at the grocery store to put her groceries in a “paper poke” when she went to “trade.” That little gal didn’t know what to think…
I remember people carrying a rabbit’s foot for good luck, and for a chance of even better luck, they also carried a buckeye. Even Elvis asked someone to be his good luck charm in one of his songs.
Some of the rabbit’s feet were fitted with a metal device that allowed the good luck bringer to be carried on a key chain.
Most of the time when I think or read about good luck, it brings to mind Richard Petty’s comments, “It seems that the harder we work, in preparing for a race, the luckier we get.”
rabbit rabbit rabbit I didn’t hear til a few years ago
never heard under yhe floor or doubling the clothes, but love that one. seems like Mt gramma said plasterboard box. She also called my bike a wheel, that was so funny to me at 10yrs old.
My grandpa called a bike a wheel, too. Hadn’t thought about that for years!
Sheryl/Wanda,
Possibly goes back to when bikes were basically one big wheel with a small wheel on the rear of the cycle?
Only outsiders that have moved in to my area say lunch, along with also saying you guys. It is and has always been dinner and supper. We are also all too country for brunch, that is for city slickers. I don’t know of many homes around here with a basement, so it’s under the floor for us. I will say cardboard box but have heard them called a pasteboard box and a paper bag or sack called a poke sack.
I almost didn’t recognize the picture of the rabbit, it has been so long since I saw one around here along with the bobwhite quail. Now it is nothing but deer, more deer, turkeys and squirrels! Well at least the state wildlife department is happy.
I have noticed the absence of rabbits around here. Was there some kind of effort to get rid of them? They were surely less destructive that the squirrels. I love squirrels but they can eat more for their size than any animal around here–won’t leave my bird feeders alone.
I don’t think anyone has tried to get rid of them but I think one reason is the loss of habit. I live in the most rural areas left in Greenville County, SC and just as soon as few acres of vacant land becomes available developers will buy it and put a housing development or subdivision on it with barely enough room between homes for a driveway and there goes the habitat for the rabbits and birds. These places have killed more wildlife than hunters ever will. Right now rumor has it that there is going to be a 300-350 housing development built within 300 yards of the huge county landfill. My wife’s grandfather use to farm this land. I wonder how long it will take for the people that buy these homes to start complaining about the traffic, noise and smell. Do they not have enough common sense to look around before they buy these homes? The only real problem I have with squirrels is with them tripping out the transformers on the power/electric lines. They sure can eat a lot, they especially love bird feeders and pecan trees. In the recent cold spell the electric company had to shut down the substations for periods of time because they could not supply the power needed by all of these homes being built.
Wishing you, yours and all The Blind Pig family a Healthy New Year, God Bless !
I grew up in rural Sussex, southern England.
On the first day of the month, the first person you saw when you woke (usually a sibling!) would shout “pinch, punch first of the month!” as they pinched you and punched your arm as hard as possible. The only way to prevent them from doing this was to shout “white rabbits!” first. I’m not sure how how far back this tradition went, but my grandma knew it and she was born in 1900.
We definitely say “bed clothes” rather than “bed linen”.
Growing up our when our family had the midday meal, and it was called dinner. You definitely didn’t want to miss the evening meal because it was always something good to eat and we kids would come a runnin, when Mama would holler suppers on come to the table. Sometimes I think the good old days have got up and gone. Happy New Year Tipper and to your whole family.
Bill, are you familiar with the gospel song called “Supper Time”? It compares dying to the evening meal you are writing about. One of my former preachers would often ask my father in law to sing this for him.
Randy,
“Come Home it is Suppertime” was one of the songs that “The Singin Governor” Jimmy Davis, former two-time Governor of LA, sang years ago.
I, too, am fascinated by words! I believe some of our grandchildren are as well, as they are always asking what things mean. Our language is colorful and as my English teacher would say ” very improper “. She told me I had no problems writing, but couldn’t speak it and was hanging out around someone who spoke a lot of slang. Lol, guess that’d be about right! Happy New Year, Tipper! May the Lord bless you and keep you and may His face shine upon you and your family!
I say tin cans for any can.
Me, too Patsy!
Me too, and tin fol for aluminum foil. Blessings and happy new year! TeresaSue.
I have always called the miday meal dinner and the evening meal supper and so does my children and grandchildren. I find it very strange to hear others call it by any other name. I guess because it’s the only way everyone in my area has always called it.I hope you and the family have a great New years and another great year!!
I still use some of them too….love the old sayings. Happy New Year to you and yours…God Bless.