It’s time for this month’s Appalachian Vocabulary Test.
I’m sharing a few videos to let you hear the words and phrases. To start the videos click on them and to stop them click on them again.
1. Rassel: wrestle. “Those two boys rasseled all over the yard till they finally got tired and give up. Neither one can claim to have won that go around.”
2. Receipt: recipe. “I have great great grandmother’s receipt for chow chow.”
3. Recollect: remember. “If I recollect right he married that man who owned the store’s daughter.”
4. Right proud: very pleased. “I’m right proud of my garden this year.”
5. rench: rinse. “If you’ll warsh and rench I’ll dry.”
All of this month’s words are common in my area of Appalachia except receipt for recipe. I believe Blind Pig readers, Ethelene Dyer and B.Ruth, have mentioned their family members using receipt for recipe.
Hope you’ll leave a comment and let me know how you did on the test.
Tipper
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The recipe/receipt thing is also heard in the lowcountry of South Carolina. One of the area’s best known cookbooks, published in 1950 and still in print, is entitled Charleston Receipts.
Woo hoo! I knew all those!
Yes, I have heard all of those all my life.
Got them all this week!!
Know and mostly use all the words in the “vocabulary test” as well as the ones mentioned by my fellow readers. Receipt is quite familiar but I don’t use it though my almost 98 year old Dad still does. He also uses “zink”, “deesh”, “feesh” on a regular basis. Wonder if there is a connection with speaking German. Many in his Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s age group still spoke German in the 20’s to the early 50’s so the influence was there.
In the Washington counties Skagit and Snohomish , have a very large population of families from North and South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. We have many of the sayings that you listed, including Warshinton. Much to the dismay of non-southerners. My girls like to say re-seepie for recipe, I have never heard receipt used.
Back in the sixties, there were wrestling matches in the evening and nights on Saturdays. My grandfather watched every Saturday. Many people called it rasseling.
Both of my grandfathers, C.S. Mauney and Nick A. Byers always said “Much obliged” instead of “thank you”. Same for my friend and booking agent in the 1970’s, Drew Taylor, in Scotland.
Knew them all, but TMC cracked me up with ‘chicken hockey’. Some family members used that term- haven’t heard it in years!
Tipper,
I love the vocabulary tests and a lot are exactly as I say them.
Sorry, I won’t be able to attend the Concert this evening, but I hope Chitter and Chatter brings the house down. …Ken
Yes i have heard and still use most of them myself, because I was raised what we call up in the holler. We would say a dope for pepsi, or a poke for a bag. Ahh! The good ole days. I miss em.
I grew up hearing all of these. I still use rench, warsh, Dershowitz, fresh, recollect is still in use but less often. My grandmother consistently used receipt for recipe. I quite often recollect. In our family the boys were allowed to rashes but not the girls.
Knew them all! Never heard “receipt” used though. My husband and son loved to “rassel” when our son was little–he called it “ruffeling”. This occurred on our bed or in the floor & is one of my favorite memories!
Oh! I love the painting of the anvil and phat appears to be a power hammer..
Heerd ever one of ’em and use all but rench and receipt in my regular speech, whatever one might call my way of talkin’ “Regular”…
I’ve heard receipt pronounced without the t. Kinda like reseep.
If I recollect correct Mommy didn’t use rinse dishes when I was growing up, she scalded them. She “worshed” them in hot soapy water, put them in a drainer then poured boiling water over then and let them air dry. She had right many break because of the sudden temperature change but I guarantee there weren’t no germs on any of them. She was a germaphobe before there was such a word.
Nowthen my wife’s people all warsh and rench their dishes in the zink.
Me and Dusty used to rassel all the time. When he got big enough that he thought he could take me I warned him “When you fight with your daddy, if he wins, you win. If you win, you lose.” We don’t rassle anymore though. I think he is afraid I’d break. Probably would too.
I hear them all often. Along with warsh for wash and feesh for fish. Deesh for dish was another from my m.i.law
Mom never used a recipe or receipt when she cooked, making both words unheard of until I learned to spell in school. Remember how the teachers used the word receipt to teach us “i before e ‘cept after c?” All the other words are as common as an old shoe.
I’ve heard all of those except using receipt for recipe. I grew up using rench and rassel. I was in my teens before I realized it was rinse and wrestle.
Knew all of them!
Tipper–Three of the words are quite familiar, and I’ve heard rench here in upstate S. C. (but not in the mountains). The use of receipt for recipe was quite common among members of my wife’s family (she was born in southside Virginia) and I’ve seen the usage in print and heard in in person in Britain.
Jim Casada
Familiar with them all, guess that means I’m truly Appalachian. I’m proud to be so.
“Receipt” for “recipe” is a new one for me, and although I’d have known what you were saying, “rench” for “rinse” isn’t part of my mountain vocabulary. Good stuff, as usual, Tipper.
Understood them all, no problem. Have most likely used all but ‘receipt’ for ‘recipe”. So glad you put the “r” in “warsh”. Some words just don’t taste right said in Standard English. I especially like “right proud” and “recollect”. They are as homey as a whiff of wood smoke.
80%. Never heard receipt.
Sometimes I hear ranch for rench.
I rassel with my 12 yr. old grandson. I don’t think I’ll be able to handle him in 3 or 4 years.
I’ve heard all of these! Maybe receipt less than the others but I have heard it. I just love that we have our own vocabulary!
All but receipt, I hear or use on daily bases. Boy, when we’d visit my Granny sometimes the cousins were there and she’d make us go outside to play and if we were gonna ” Rassel” she’d lay an old blanket on the ground so we wouldn’t get, as she would call it, ” chicken hockey” all over us.