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.
1. Swipe: (also swipe off, swipe out): to wipe, brush or strike with a sweeping motion. “I have to swipe off the grandaddies from our benches in the backyard before sitting on them.”
2. Swimmy-headed: dizzy. “During my recent sickness I was so swimmy-headed when I stood up that I immediately wanted to lay back down.”
3. Sweet milk: whole milk. “Granny and Pap loved to drink buttermilk when I was growing up. Granny still does. My brothers and I all prefer sweet milk.”
4. Swarp: to stike, lash, or push with a sweeping motion. “One time my cousin and her husband were cutting firewood. They were pulling the logs with a truck to a better place for cutting and loading. The chain came lose and swarped her across the leg. We had to take her to the emergency room but thank goodness there was nothing broken just a severe scrape and bruise.”
5. Swaller: swallow. “This summer I’ve found a swaller of cold tomato juice really hits the spot on a hot day.”
All of this month’s words are beyond common in my area of Appalachia. Hope you’ll leave a comment and tell me how you did on the test.
Last night’s video: Big Changes in the Garden.
Tipper
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Yup, I took a swaller of milch from the jug and ma took a swipe at me with the broom.
I, too, got swimmy headed Friday, and did a face plant on my hot concrete driveway . It took me about 10 seconds to roll onto the grass, where I lay until the stars faded. Then I crawled to a tree and got to my feet. Today my eye looks like a cherry in a snowdrift, but other than that and some painful road rash on my left knee, I’m fine. Getting old is not for sissies.
My grandmother from way out in a holler in Jackson County, TN, used to say “swimmy headed”. I still say it all the time. The older I get the more swimmy headed spells I have!
It’s called sweet milk because it still has lactose (milk sugar) in it. That distinguishes it from sour milk and its products buttermilk, yogurt and cheese. The bacteria (Lactobacillus) that sours the sweet milk eats the lactose and turns it into lactic acid (fermentation). Lactobacillus prevents harmful bacteria from getting a foothold.
that makes sense. thanks!
Got them all except swarp.
Got ‘em all except swarp. The videos are so fun! Thanks guys!
that makes sense. thanks!
Only sweet milk and swaller are familiar.
I aced this test and probably said every word on here in the past month. I’ve heard my parents describe someone drunk and raising cain as someone who was out drinking and swarping around. If mom told us kids to hush our arguing and we didn’t, the next thing we knew, she would swarp our behinds with a good, keen switch. I love these vocabulary tests. They make me wonder how many times I’ve caused my listeners to scratch their heads and try to figure out what I was talking about.
Anyone ever hear of “Reading off” as to cleaning off a table our some surface.
My mama has always said she’s gonna go read up the table—meaning clear off the dishes.
I live in south central PA and to read off the table is a Pennsylvania Dutch saying
Around eastern Kentucky, swarp can be used to mean running around getting into mischief. ‘He was seen swarpin’ around last Saturday night.’
I’ve heard sweet milk. I’ve never heard the others, but swimmy-headed is a good way to describe being dizzy.
i wanted to mention i noticed two pronunciation differences in your video garden tour today, i imagine they are appalachianisms? the first one i’d noticed before, but remembered it today: gladiola. my mother hated her first name “gladys” and never used it after she was grown and left tampa, but her sisters still insisted on nicknaming her “glad” (her father, born in reconstruction alabama, called her “happybottom” which, i’m sure, is one of the reasons she hated it, the other being that there were five gladyses in her class at school!) you never hear it much anymore. but anyway, i know i’ve heard you and katie, and maybe corrie, say “gladol-ya” where i have always heard “glad-ee-ola.”
the other one is salmon, the color and the fish. you say it just like it’s spelled, which makes sense, but i have always said “sammon”. i grew up in northern california and salmon are native to the pacific northwest so it never occurred to me it might be pronounced differently elsewhere!
Elithea, thank you for pointing those out! So fascinating:)
My mom could whip up a great “sal-mon” stew using salmon (“sammon”). Sal-mon was the only pronunciation I ever heard either of my parents use. I learned about silent letters, like the “l” in salmon and the “g” in gnarly, in one of the early grades.
so strange that i never heard it, it’s spelled that way, but i never had!
on another silent note, my mama was born in tampa in 1908, long before phonetics was taught in school. as a result she never learned how to say words she didn’t already know—you can imagine how amusing this was once the world opened up after wwii! monmarte became “mt. martaire”, etc. anyway, silent Gs completely befuddled her, which baby boomer me never understood. i still hear her “gwin-o-nee” in my head whenever i encounter a gnome.
I was fine with all but ‘swarp’, don’t recall ever hearing that. I have a form of vertigo and when it flares up I am VERY SWIMMY-HEADED.
I was not familiar with swarp but I certainly knew sweet milk and I personally experience being swimmy headed a lot. We are in the middle of a good dousing of rain right now. Today was to be my weed pulling day but that’s out of the question.
Blessings from Ohio
My daddy used to come home from work and tell mama he was so “tarred” all he wanted for supper was cornbread and sweet milk!
We lived for a while in Ft Lauderdale where they had drive through places to buy bread, milk and other things you are always running out of. A lot of the people are from up north. My husband drove through and asked for sweet milk. The clerk had no idea what he wanted.
I’ll say 3 1/2 with the 1/2 being “swipe” and the missing one “swarp”. I know “swipe” well but it must have been a coon’s age since I heard it or used it. Puzzling. And I Don’t recall having ever heard “swarp”. What I’m used to instead is just “warp” with the same meaning and use. I need to start keeping a list of words to ask you about ’cause ever now and again I think, “Wonder if they say this over in Tippers neck of the woods?” But then I forget what it was. I’m pretty sure that if I was up your way in amongst a bunch of fellas talking there would be very few words that would make me think “??”. And I think that would be true from somewhere about West Virginia south and west to at least northern Alabama. Glad to hear you got rain Randy and hope you get the break in the weather on the heat to.
5 for 5
Yes even swarp. I use swarp a lot and always have. A swarp is a swipe³. My analogy for swarp is when you are milking and the cow swipes her tail across your face only it is filled with dried poop and cuckleburrs. Or when you are standing in the back of a pickup truck going 70 MPH and fail to notice an upcoming pine limb hanging across the road. Swarp=an exponential swipe.
Back in my teenage years in the 60’s when all of the vehicles we drove had 2-60 air conditioning, the driver liked to catch his passenger have his arm hanging out the window and would serve over close to shoulder of the road on the backroads and let the tall weeds smack the passenger’s arm. If he was successful, there would usually be some ugly words said along with some name calling. It would be bad if the weeds turned out to have briars in them. Everyone in the vehicle except for the one that got his arm smacked thought it was funny. I don’t guess this would be considered swarped maybe swiped.
I hear all of these all the time. I usually say “I feel like my “head is swimmin” instead of I feel “swimmy headed”—basically the same. My mama always says swaller. She adds an r sound to lots of words. I just love it.
I can still remember my mother telling me to grab a wet washrag and take a swipe at my face after I came in the house all sweaty and dirty from playing. I have heard and used all the other terms as well (still do) except swarp…ot familiar with that one.
We finally got some much needed rain here, and we are looking forward to a release from the heat over the next day or two.
Blessings on you and yours today and always.♥️
Reminds me of a friend of mine who ordered sweet milk at a restaurant and they put sugar in the milk.
I’ve heard and use them all right regularly! SWARP is the best word, though! It describes what I do around this joint to a “T!” I’m a’swarpin’ everything-floors, counters, nooks, corners, dirt as it shows up-all day every day til I pass out cold at night. Yesterday I worked up banana peppers til my hands hurt. Today they get hot bathed and put up… my fingers and nails are brown… lol oh yeah food of the day-MATER sammiches
Don’t you just love spell check – Swarp
Sharp and Swipe were new to me. Always fun to get the vocabulary words!
I’ve heard of “swipe off” as meaning to steal something. The other terms are familiar to me.
Heard the all except swarp
Know and still use them all but swarp.
These are all very familiar. When I read swaller it made me think of the many words we change the ending of. Holler, piller, winder, waller, etc. Of course, those words are hollow, pillow, window, wallow, etc. I giggle as I write that because our son in love grew up in a small town near us and never had any colorful language in his life and is always asking, “what does that even mean”. We get tickled. My husband always asks him if he was raised in box in the back of the closet. I love when you share these!!
Well, it’s storming again here this morning. I did get a chance to pull some weeds from the garden, but it’s getting wooly. I like to keep a tidy garden and the rain has certainly been an issue. The good news is that this front moving through is bringing needed relief from the heat and humidity. Our crews work outside and I’m grateful they will have some relief. Praise God!
May y’all have a wonderful day and may the peace of God be with you.
I will use “She must have been raised in a box in the back of the closet!” this very day! It is colorful, humorous, succinct, and applies to a neighbor who very well could have been, bless her heart.
I know them all except swarp.
Swarp is the only one I wasn’t familiar with. I’ve heard my mom use the others often. Happy Heavenly Birthday Mom! She would have been 102.
I have heard all of them with 2 and 3 being the ones most often heard. I often say swimmy head and sweet milk. Sweet milk and unsweetened cornbread is a favorite meal for me. Swipe off sounds like something I would say if someone had stole something.
As we say at our church, I have a “praise report” this morning- the end is in site for this hot dry weather I have been complaining about. After 6 weeks of less than an inch of rain, I had a good ‘soaking in” rain last night. This Friday will make 42 continuous days of above 90 degrees and high humidity with the heat index being @110 degrees on many of the days. This weekend the high temperatures for Saturday and Sunday are supposed to only be in the upper 70’s and then in 80’s and low humidity for the following week with a good chance of rain each day. I got swimmy headed and nauseated several times while trying to work outside on those hot 90 degree days. Bring it on! I can no longer take the heat like I once could, I must be getting old and soft.