Granny says “Let your Momma plait your hair and it’ll stay out of your eyes.” The girls say “Momma will you braid my hair?” Sometimes I say “I could braid your hair if you want me too?” Other times I say “You should let me plait your hair and that way you don’t have to keep pushing it behind your ears.”
How about you do you plait, braid, or both?
Tipper
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heard them both, but we braid
I braid the hair.
But I’ve know people to plait the hair. LOL
I dont think anybody ever braided my hair. Missed that life. Nana
wow lots of hair talk. lol here in the pa area… we say braid your hair.. i used to fix my daughters hair in braids also..
your girls are beautiful and yes. i agree their hair will be better braided when they clog..
big ladybug hugs
lynn
My maw maw always wanted to plait my hair! I wish she was here to do it for me and my girls now. I think I’ll start using that term myself!
Mitchell plaits & I braid- neither one of us does it very well! I can really relate to RuthB.’s grandmother. My grandmaw had hair down below her knees that she plaited everyday-we still have some of her old-fashioned hair pins & tortoise shell combs.
we always said plait, but it actually sounded more like “plant”.
the first time I heard braid, I had no idea what it was.
My grandmother used to plait my hair –but these days I tend to say braid.
In south MS we said plait. I probably hadn’t heard the word braid until Martile Sudduth French-braided my hair for 6th grade Field Day – I think she was from Florida. That was in about 1980. I’m 42 now, and raised my girls using both works interchangably. My husband and I love your website!
When I was a “young’un” I remember all my girl cousins doing the plait thing, but as I moved and grew a bit older I heard “braid” used more frequently. My wife “braided” my daughter’s hair. As for my hair, well there just isn’t enough to do either. (smile)
Momma braided my hair. I was grown before I ever hear plait. My hair was so fine that I ended up going to ‘doggy ears’ because the braids would work loose and so would the pony tail. Then I found the joy of short hair. Fun post and as a child I know I enjoyed the attention from momma while she braided my hair.
Thanks for the kick in the memory before this Mother’s Day…
Helen
What Jim said!!
We braid, but are familiar with plait, so it’s not like we’d look at you cross-eyed if you said it!
🙂
I do neither, but what’s a guy to do. However, now that we all have learned an old Applachian term, or one less often used, let’s re-intorduce the word to our kith and kin so it will not die out like so many other words found in our Southern Appalachian region.
We are the keepers of the words. Pass em on.
Tipper,
Today I’m celebrating with a lot of joy and satisfaction. Our boys
got ole Bin Laden. Thats a start.
The hair braiding thing I have
seen alot. My youngest daughter
braids her 4 girls and it seems
like an awful lot of work. My
grandma’s sister use to stay about
a week at a time with us when I
was little. I remember her long,
greyish-blonde hair reaching down
below her backside but when she
finished plaiding it, there was
just a ball on the back of her
head with some kind of pin through
it. She was the neatest lady…Ken
Tipper,
My Grandmother plaited her hair. It was very long and then she wound it up in a bun on the back of her head, securing it with those “old timey” open hairpins and tortoise colored hair combs..
At night just before going to bed..she would undo her hair, brush and comb it…put on her long flannel gown and robe, take off her glasses, take out her teeth and put them in a glass of water, move the chamber pot, aka (“Thunder Jug”), more toward the front (under the edge) of the bed..pull “umpteen” quilts down and prop up her pillows and climb into bed..LOL
Nowadays I can’t believe that closed hairpins are getting to be “old timey.” As much as I wanted to be like a lot of the girls with long hair and braid mine, it wouldn’t stay unless it was braided very tight and then some…because it is so fine…it just fell out in no time…so I opted for a pony tail…
Thanks Tipper,
Tipper–Like Lonnie, I’m afraid that this topic isn’t directly applicable to me. There’s hardly enough of my sparse grey hackle to comb, never mind plait.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
I have heard and read plait, but use braid myself. I have very long hair and my husband braids it for me – and does a very good job too!
I agree with Samantha. I’ve heard plait & I think I used to say it, too. Haven’t heard it for so long I think I just forgot about it & call it braid.
Stacey
SWPA
I’ve always heard braid in this part of the country (Oklahoma).
Mamaw said plait but now adays with my grandaughter’s black friends braid is one kind and plait is another–so we just use braid
I’ve heard both plait and braid. Guess I’ve heard braid more. Like Phyllis my hair was mostly too short to braid and always too fine. Now my hair is long enough maybe I’ll give it a try.
My granny had very long hair and every night she would take it dawn and comb it out. Then she would re-braid it and in the morning pin it back up. I think that was what most folks did at that time. In her later years she broke her arm and couldn’t manage her hair so she had it cut short.
Braid was not a word we ever used.It was always plait.As kids we would plait our pigtails.
My WV mother plaited my hair, but when I talk about my childhood I say I wore it in braids.
I’d love to do either to mine! Plait was used almost exclusively when we were growing up. Now it’s always braid. Maybe plait is another one of those words that the French brought to England in 1066; English already had a word so both were used. We (as English speakers) are still sorting those out…they just hang on a little longer in the hills.
I have said both, it seems now if you say plaited no one knows what I am talking about. We knew a lady growing up her nickname was “Baby” and she has long long gray hair. Mama or Phyllis used to plait it for her then wind it up in a bun and pin it with beautiful combs.
mother called it plait when she could catch me, i hated it when she did it because it hurt and i always cried, so she cut it short and put a perm in it. perms way back then were the bobby pin kind making little tiny curs and pin to head. YIKES i hated that worse than plaiting.
I have never heard the word plait used, but have seen it in my reading. My little girl, who is 25 now, still asks me to braid her hair. Such a timeless mother-daughter moment!
Like the word plait, but I say braid. And I braid my hair every day. 🙂
don’t know where ‘braid’ came from but ‘plait’ the British thing to say
Most of my life, my hair has been too short to plait. Even when it was long enough, the texture (extremely fine) of my hair does not accommodate the style either. We used to help an older lady when I was in my teens — either Mama or I would shampoo her hair, comb it out, and then plait it. She would then make a knot in the back and pin it up.
I hadnt hear the word plait in years. I used to say it but changed to saying braid. My Granny Nichols always plaited her hair , then wound it up on her head and pinned it. I have long hair and keep it braided. I love braided or plaited hair. Barbara
My Gram said plait and I used to say it, too. More frequently I say braid..plait seems to be a dying word.