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. Cut a shine: make a commotion. “Every time he gets around a pretty girl he cuts a shine. Some of them love it and some of them don’t!”
2. Covered up: inundated; extremely busy. “He said he’s so covered up that it’d be November before he could look at it. I guess the mechanicing business is good.
3. Coon dog: a dog trained to hunt raccoons. “Papaw loved his coon dogs. There are still stories being told about them here in Wilson Holler.”
4. Commence: to start. “She came into the house and commenced to telling them what for! I’m telling you she was hot about them doing it without telling her.”
5. Come go home with me: an invitation issued when departing. “Come go home with me along with You ought to just spend the night said by the people you are departing from are phrases I grew up hearing all the time. I’m thrilled the Blind Pig is used as a source for the phrases in the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English.”
All of this month’s words and phrases are beyond common where I live. Hope you’ll leave a comment and tell me how you did on the test.
Last night’s video: Wanting a Better Life – From My Highest Hill 4.
Tipper
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Know and have used all of these.
Heard most these, but seems to me they all make sense. Blessings to all and prayers for y’all that needs the Lord to be with you at this difficult time. Pray without ceasing. Amen
I grew up hearing and still use every single one of these! Now I think coon dogs are owner trained dogs not breed specific. If you ever watch dog shows, you’ll notice there are breed specific: blue tick, red bone, red tick, black and tan, and treeing walking coon hounds. Hound dogs have that great baying bark about them. But I have also know some mixed breed coon dogs over the years that could “cut a shine” after a raccoon!
Lynn, I think of any breed of hound dog you mentioned with the exception of bloodhound to be coon dogs. Sometimes a mixed breed dog will put a “full blood” to shame. A bloodhound was bred for one thing, to trail and find humans. I was a bird hunter and a cross/mix between an English Pointer and English Setter was called a drop, I heard it said by hunters that a drop was the best dog they had ever hunted behind. I once had a bird dog that was a little bit pointer and setter- he would sit in the corner of his pen and point at his food pan! Right now our family dog is half Walker hound and half Labrador, just a 100 lb pet, but when he goes into his baying bark he can shake the leaves on the trees.
I believe it Randy. Dogs are amazing! I agree that the full bloods don’t have anything on the mixed breeds. I can see that an English Pointer and English Setter would be a phenomenal cross. I did not know they were called a Drop. Thanks for teaching me something today! I grew up hearing that baying bark far off in the woods, but it still makes those hounds special to me even today. I love to hear it. Send my best wishes to your 100 lb Walker/Lab. He’s a big boy! I can see he has a big voice to match!
I know and use so many of these especially, “come go home with me.”
Holly weird cannot hold a candle to the talent I witnessed here on today’s vocabulary test. I know and am familiar with using each one of those terms. I don’t say “come and go home with me” because I’m afraid someone might just take me up on it. Lol. I ain’t kidding. You all have a PURTY and wonderful day down the road a piece. Good to see everybody in dandy spirits down your way. Jk
Of all the attributes of familiar southern speech, the dropping of the final “g” in words ending in “ing” is likely closest to being “universal.” Who among us doesn’t use “huntin'” or “washin'” when speaking informally? I can’t think of anybody.
Did you mean warshin?
I’m familiar with all these old Appalachian sayings! The most familiar one I hear is “come go home with me” Sunday after church service!
I’ve heard commence and coon dog.
I don’t no not nary one uh them words! Not nary uh one!
My great Uncle and Grandmother used the phrase “ort to” for you as in “you ort to do that for your mother.” It frequently turned into ortta. I know you have talked about the pronunciation differences such as in spinage instead of spinach, etc. Love you and love the language of my elders who are long but gone now. Another one was “you-uns.”
Know them all anhave used them all one time or another. You all make me homesick for the hills. I jjust never have been quite at home here. Maybe it’s a character flaw. I am more likelyto say “slap covered up” than “slam” though. And I would be likely to double up on the commencing, as maybe ” I lit in to commence” or “I set about commencing” or even “I was just afixin’ to commence when it set in to rainin’ cats and dogs”. By the way, Tipper, used your August “Planting by the signs” yesterday to plant the fall garden.
My parents used every one of those phrases, and I still do. Most people would say you orta just stay all night with us, knowing doggone well they didn’t have an extra bed.
I didn’t know covered up or cut a shine. “Come go home with me,” about sums up my childhood among older relatives. I loved hearing that from my Aunt Lindy because she really meant it. Going home with her was the best!
Heard all of them my whole life. Even though my parents moved north for jobs their language didn’t change. Neither did mine. Haven’t lived in my holler for many years but people who meet me ask where I’m from. I’m happy to tell them about the Tennessee I love with my whole heart from the church my daddy donated the land for to the one lane dirt roads my kids are in awe when they drive down em into that holler.
Oh my goodness, I’ve heard all those words growing up in northern Illinois and down at my grandparents in NE MS. Come go home with me and spend the night, was used when ever we met an old friend:)
I heard these all my life from my daddy’s family who were born and raised in Florida, and my mom’s family, born, and raised in Indiana. Sure brings back memories when you see them in print instead of not paying attention to them when they’re coming out of your mouth. I don’t post much, but read your blog every day and pray for all.
I love and knew all the vocabulary words this month.
I’ve heard all of those except “slam covered up”. i remember my grandma or other older relatives saying “come go home with me” and was a bit horrified because I took it literally — I didn’t want to go home with those people or have them come to our crowded home!
good morning and God bless everybody, please Lord heal the sick, save the lost, comfort the suffering and struggling, provide and make life easier, we pray to you and thank you for this new day Lord in Jesus name,Papaw Tony and Corie, anybody that comes by that sick suffering and struggling, God helping Jesus name, amen
Amen, brother! That’s beautifully said. Where two or more agree together, the Lord hears. Good people here!
God bless you Sadie
We say all of the phrases you have here today. We don’t usually say “come go home with me” exactly, but we say “well come and visit next time you are by”, or “you may as well spend the night” or “don’t run off so soon”, or “don’t be a stranger’.
Commence and coon dog are the ones I know.
I’ve heard of them all except “slam covered up!” My parents, aunts and uncles who were from eastern KY all used most of these phrases except the one.
I have heard all of them. A man, now dead, in my neighborhood was nicknamed “Coon Dog” because of his many hound dogs and his love of coon hunting.
I use or have use all of them. The “take a shine”, I’ve heard, but rarely. I was Youtubing the other day and came across these two guys talking about “mountain talk/Southern accents”. They challenged each other to a quiz of words/phrases and the meanings of each. I did not have any problem understanding either, though the guy from east TN/Smokey Mtn region sounded more in tune with my dialect. Most of the words and phrases I heard here in north AL as a youth. I miss the old talk and “old timey” ways. I purposefully try to use the “old talk” I recall from youth and know others around that do the same trying to keep a part of Appalachian culture alive. Here is the link to the video mentioned if anyone is interested. https://youtu.be/Wn5YeA7OWaQ
We use every one of these. I can even hear my grandparents talking these words. Funny how words conjure up so many memories. Have a beautiful day and be blessed.
PS, My brother in law came through surgery good and stayed in ICU. Thank you for the prayers
Hi Tipper and Acorns. I love the vocabulary tests. I recon I talk like most folks here. When we moved back here in 1970 I was 11 and when I met the kids at school that fall, I swore to myself I’d never talk like them. Well guess what; about every word out of my mouth has at least 2 syllables and I love it.
Barbara, I remember reading a book about a girl growing up in either Kentucky or the mountains of Tennessee saying it took at least a year or two to teach a Yankee to speak correctly and the language of their area. She had lost a spelling bee contest because of not understanding her Northern teacher’s pronunciation of one of the words. I am southern to the bone and intend to stay that way, if you don’t like the way I talk, go back to where you came from, you ain’t from around here! I was born, raised and still live in the “suburbs”of the Possum Kingdom area of southern Greenville County, SC. It is a joke that only a few admit to actually living in Possum Kingdom. I don’t know that I would be happy living anywhere else.
Randy i am familiar with Possum Kingdom!
Linda, I actually live on the other side of HWY 25 (in behind Twin Chimneys Landfill) but in my senior year of high school drove the school bus on the side streets/roads and Main Street (Holiday Dam Road) of Possum Kingdom. My wife or girlfriend at that time lived over that way and rode my bus. I would tease her and call her my Possum Kingdom Queen. How I wish it was possible to turn back the hands of time and go back to those happy days!
Are you familiar with the actual Holiday Dam?