It’s time for this month’s Appalachian Vocabulary Test-take it and see how you do!
- Hunt up
- Hurrican
- Hub deep
- Hold with
- Het up
- Hunt up: to look for something; to search for. “I was trying to hunt up some brown buttons for my new dress. I know I had some around here somewhere.”
- Hurrican: hurricane. “The wind blew like a hurrican coming through last night. Thought it was gonna blow us away.”
- Hub deep: substance reaching the hub of a wheel. “It’s marred up hub deep and I don’t think it’ll come out unless you get somebody to pull it out. or “He liked to have scared me to death driving through that water! Why it was hub deep and no telling what was floating around in it.”
- Hold with: to approve of. “Now I hold with dancing-as long as it ain’t vulgar and as long as it ain’t in the church house.”
- Het up: to become upset. “Don’t get all het up I know you just mopped the floor-I’ll clean the mud up if you’ll just give me a minute.”
I’m familiar with all of this month’s words and I hear them around my place on a regular basis. I only hear hurrican (sounds like hurra-kan) from older folks-both Granny and Pap say it. And The Deer Hunter is always telling me not to get het up about this or that.
How about you-how did you do on the test?
Tipper
My parents used all those words, Tipper, down in south Georgia. As I’ve said before, your background here is much the same as the rural one I had in SW Georgia.
Also,those of my family who were native Floridians said hurrican instead of hurricane. Just one more way we southerners shorten our words and drop those endings.
Love your vocabulary tests.
Knew them all! Great collection of terms!
There’s a fancy gated community in Haywood County called Hurricane Ridge. Funny, though, it’s at the head of Hurrican Creek. Furriners!
Tipper,
and Jim especially…Was that statement of yorn a’liken to going AWOL and then being up to yore “Brass Buttonholes” in trouble?
Thanks Tipper,
Post or not to post that is the question!
Tipper, Made a 100 on these. Once upon a time I bought a big new heavy 4 wheel drive and thought I could go where the old 72 chevy would go but I got it stuck up to the hubs and bellied out. I was more than het up when I paid the wrecker bill. Larry Proffitt
Have heard of these but not used all of them
Tipper,
Yep, heard them all, don’t use them all exactly…
This cold day, eventhough, much warmer…
Tis better to “hunt up” than to have to “hunt down”! I’m goin’ to “hunt down” that “little mickey mouse” that thinks he’s a’ gonna spend the winter in my closet! “Vengence is mine,” sayth the mouse trap!
Hurrican..”hurrican” when folks from Appalachia was tryin’ to talk Yankee Anglish and use a more proper pronounciation, than that there “Hurrycaine”?
Hub deep…Depends on the distance from the hub/axel to the ground. The snow is only hub deep, I was told, then I got to 441 and the “hubdeep” went from a VW to a Mac Truck!
Hold with…I hold with the fact that when it gits this cold again that you’ve done forgot how cold it was during the 93′ blizzard, so yore mind thinks there’s never been cold ever, like 2014!
Het up…Ma would get all (heated up, angry, aggravated) “het up” over that “nosy” neighbor that kept pickin’ and askin’ about another neighbor’s “bizniz”..”She would just founder herself on gossip”, Ma said.
Thanks Tipper,
Loved all the comments, too…I just love it when all these folks comment and give-out their opionions on such!
I like these Tipper. I’ve heard them all my life and use them myself. Thanks.
When you stop and think about it, “Hub deep” originally referred to a wagon wheel, ‘way deeper than your pick-up’s wheel, so the situation is more dire than you thought it was. Hm..mired n dire…
“Hold with” and “Het up”: I don’t use either on much but I know what they mean when someone else does, I’m multi-lingual.
“Hunt up”: Every day, when I can remember what I came in the room to hunt up.
Hurrican: Yep! Been through a few of them when I lived in Florida, where they pronounced it Hurricane, but then, they’re mostly ex-Yankees down there. It’s still Hurrican to me. I just asked the Mountain Woman how she pronounced the name of the two creeks in Wayne County WV, the big and the littl’un, that was the same as the big windstorms in FL. she thought a minute and said “Oh!Big Hurrican and Little Hurrican. Then she said, but the storms in Florida are hurriCANES… I’ll never figure that one out…
Tipper,
All these words are familiar to me
except “het up”. I’m still trying to
figure that one out, but I understand
Ed’s version.
I’m excited about those gorgeous
Pressley Girls gonna be performing
near here Saturday nite…Ken
We were axle deep instead of hub deep but have heard & used all the others.
Sheila, we got marred up too. Doesn’t happen much now that we live where there are better roads. Thanks for the smile this gave me!!
All but “hurrican” are still in my vocabulary. Sometimes I get hub deep with put-off housework, but I no longer get het up about that! Not that I hold with procrastination, but some days I just wake up tired and don’t do much those days.
I use or have used most of them myself, except for hurrican. For some reason het up is the most frequently used one in my life now. It seems I am always telling someone not to get so het up!! Most of the time that results in my defining the expression. Which, (since I left Texas) seems to be a frequent occurence for me. My cousins that live outside of Mobile,Alabama pronounce hurricane, hurricun! Have a great day everyone.
Most of them are used in England though “hold with” is only used in the negative as in “I don’t hold with all a that there modern music”. Hub deep isn’t used – you’d be “in it up ter your axles”
I was walking my dogs one morning after a rain and they went through a muddy patch with no problem. I thought to myself, if I do that I’ll marr up hub deep. As I continued to walk along I started thinking about the word marr, a word I have used all my life, and a word if used around my Memphis friends is sure to result in puzzled looks. I got to thinking about how to spell it—“mar”, or “marr”, then started laughing at myself, realizing I’m 50-something and just now figuring out the word is actually “mire” that we just pronounce “marr!” Wonder how may other words like that are in my vocabulary? Keep the vocab tests coming and I may discover a few more!
I’m familiar with all except the hurrican pronunciation – use “hurricane” in many situations describing a destructive event (You kids clean up this room – it looks like a hurricane come through!)
I use them all too and hear my family using them but “het up” not so often these days [maybe it’s the weather! đŸ™‚ ]
For Carol: haven’t used “haired up” to describe those fuzzy things at the back of the refrigerator – we just call them “hairy”; but also use “hairy” to describe a frightening or “hair raising” circumstance.
Tipper – perhaps we should include your Vocabulary Tests in the brain exercises to ward off dementia!! The tests and the discussion they stimulate often exercise my gray matter.
I’m familiar with all of these. It commenced stormin like a hurrican on the way home. We ‘bottomed out’ hub deep in a mud hole. I was het up about it, but we held with the notion to walk on home.
I have seen strawberries grow “hair.” It seems as though it grows overnight.
I use the phrase “healed up and haired over” when a cut or scrape was healed and the hair had grown back.
Geez, I feel like a northerner this morning! Hunt up is the only one I am familiar with. I have a lot of practicing to do.
Tipper–All are familiar, and all but hurrican intimately so in that they are part of my regularly used modes of expression. There’s a slightly vulgar variation on hub deep one often hears, but I won’t use it here because I don’t want you to get all het up and have a hissy fit or even worse, a red-eyed hissy fit. A near synonym is “I’m up to the hub in trouble” (or something similar).
As ford holding with (or not) dancing, the president of the college I attended as an undergraduate reckoned that any kind of dancing other than clogging or square dancing was downright sinful, what he described as “a vertical position for horizontal desires.” Never mind the fact that his phrasing conjured up all sorts of images in the minds of testosterone-laden undergraduates, it was a fine turn of phrase.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
I’m familiar with all of them but I do not hear hurrican, hold with or het up used much anymore. I don’t know why but this remeinds me of a word my daddy used. He would use the word bum for bomb as in; “They are dropping bums all over the place over there in the desert!”
I hear and use all except Hurrican on a fairly regular basis.
We must be from the same colorful vocabulary area, Tipper. I’m familiar with all your terms for today and have used them and heard them around Choestoe where I grew up. However, when we get “eddicated” our speech patterns usually take on the more sophisticated flavor of acceptable grammar and lose some of the descriptiveness. Keep the vocabulary tests coming! I love them!
I have certainly heard of all of these, except “hub deep”. I am wondering if you or any of your readers have heard of “haired over”? Somebody might say “I forgot all about that little bowl of strawberries I put in the refrigerator and it got pushed behind a bunch of other stuff and now they are all haired over!!” (Meaning covered with mold)…..Of course maybe everybody else does a better job of keeping up with things they put in the refrigerator!!!!
Only one heard or used is hunt up.
I was able to figure out the first two, but the last three were a learning leasson for me. Good way to start my day! New learning is a good thing!
I am familiar with all of these having heard them all at some time in my life.However, I don’t hear them now, they are all expressions of the past.
Haven’t used hub deep (buried up to the axles, yes).
Interestingly, there word Hurricane is applied to place names – mostly streams – all over western NC. There are three Hurricane Branches in Swain County. One is on Eagle Creek, about a mile west of the former home of Quill Rose. Another is near the home place of Blind Pig contributor Ed Ammons and a third is a feeder to Sawmill Creek. There’s another Hurricane Branch north of Marble and Andrews in Cherokee County.
Then there are several Hurricane Creeks:
– two Hurricane Creeks in Haywood County: one in Cataloochee, and another which runs into the Pigeon River along I-40 in the gorge
– one in the Tusquitee area of Clay County,
– one runs into Nantahala (Aquone) Lake in Macon County
– one runs into the head of Thorpe Lake in Jackson County
Why we’ve got more Hurricanes in these mountains than they do down on the coast!
I know clogging ain’t vulgar but I did teach in the basement of the Catholic Church for a short time in Pennsylvania. The folks loved it. We always had an audience.
Will try to make it Sat. nite.
I knew all of these. First time that has happened in quite a while.
Familiar with all of them. Grandmother used hurracan, I use the others especially to make a point. Tipper, I find myself being deliberately more Appalacian when I am in a new situation or with people who are the least bit pretentious. Saying, I suppose, I am of this place, don’t tread on me.
I am familiar with and have used all of these.
I use them all guzactly like you do. Sometimes axle deep or door handle deep might be substituted for Hub deep. Het up applies to your old clunker. You can’t just get in and go. You’ve got to let the motor get het up first.
I’m familiar with all of them except “hold with”.. But hear the rest often..