It’s time for this month’s Appalachian Vocabulary Test take it and see how you do!
- Agg
- Aggravatingest
- Akinned
- Amind
- Astraddle
- Agg: to egg on. “She would have already forgot about it, if you didn’t quit agging her on. I told you both there ain’t nothing she can do about it so you just need to quit dwelling on it.”
- Aggravatingest: aggravating, annoying. “That boy is the most aggravatingest person I’ve ever had to be around. I don’t know how he can stand hisself.”
- Akinned: related by blood. “So you’re a Pressley. Reckon your akinned to any of those Pressleys that live over in Jackson County? I used to know some of them.”
- Amind: to have in mind. “I’ve amind to take that old car down there and see if somebody won’t buy it. I keep seeing ones just like it on that tv show and them people talk like they’re really something to have.”
- Astraddle: having legs stretched across the top of; to straddle. “When I come down the road yesterday I saw him astraddle that big ole hemlock that fell across the creek a few years ago. Don’t know what he was doing out there. It was cold as whiz and he didn’t look to even have a coat on.”
I’m familiar with all of this month’s words and I hear them on a regular basis in my area of Appalachia. More than that, I hear them in my own house!
The last 3 are often lumped together along with a lot of other words that we put an ‘a’ before. But if you hear the words actually spoken they’re said as a single word instead of a word with a strong a prefix at the beginning. Or maybe my ears just hear it as a single word because they’re words I’ve always heard.
Do please leave a comment and let me know how you did on the test!
Tipper
Only the 2nd one not in regular use in West Texas and where I now live in Oklahoma. Seems the vocabulary follows the more migratory working class in the fossil fuel industry at least, I guess we like an energy efficient, streamlined, colorful vocabulary. …
I knew them all from being raised by my granny and being exposed to her “kinfolk” way back in the “holler”! Grin!
Some of those “kin” were so good at moonshining and they were so good at hiding the stills that although law enforcement flew all over the mountainous region, they were never able to find their stills.
I love all of these words and still have a few in my vocabulary if you can make it through my southern accent!! I am so thankful to God for letting me be born in that era and giving me the memories and knowledge of the way things were back then that
have served me well throughout my life.
We cannot let this way of life die and thanks to you, it won’t!
I have all of the Foxfire books and have ordered the books by Barbara Woodall, thanks to your article. Thanks, Tipper!
As I read these words,, not only use them but I hear voices of those from the past that used them.. I can hear my Mamaw and Papaw talking, Uncles, and cousins that are all gone now, but I can hear them plan as day…
I use and hear all the words listed today. I often remind people that I’m proud of my Appalachian heritage and unique vocabulary. It’s funny because I don’t realize that I use this vocabulary until I see it listed in the Appalachian Vocabulary Tests. Keep “em comin”.
These are all common words here in my generation. My grandchildren still try to educate grandpa that the noon meal is not dinner. Larry Proffitt
I’ve heard and used akinned before, but the rest I’ve heard used and used as two words or as the word in the definition.
God bless.
RB
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I’ve used agg, aggravatingest and amind.
If you’re talking about the Pressleys from up around Speedwell, I am distantly akinned to them. By marriage not by blood.
Ann-thank you for the comments! When agg comes out of my mouth it does sound like the beginning of the word agriculture : )
Once again I hear close ties between “mountain talk” and just plain old “country talk”. This south Texas country girl akinned to many rural Kansas folk uses all those terms. However, it gave me pause to think on how I say “egg” – I say it as though the “e” has a “long a” sound no matter whether I talking about that oblongish thing that drops out of a bird or I’m using it as a verb to describe some aggravating behavior of some imp who’s trying to get another in trouble. Do other folks make a distinction between the sounds depending on the use? If so, which is the “ai” sound? Do any folks use an “eh” sound? If so, in what circumstances?
My kids, grandkids and I made 8 gingerbread houses (yes, this is really related to the “egg / pronunciation” comment) over the holidays – and all of them fussed about the way I say “roof” . . . much to the consternation of the New Jersey son-in-law, the new Italian daughter-in-law, and the foreign exchange student from Spain! The little ones in our family are hearing all sorts of sounds! They are readily becoming atuned to the several accents and are often the ones to “interpret” for the adults! – – It’s a hoot to listen to the conversations here!
I got ’em all. I use ’em all! My daddy’s bunch pronounced egg as agg and leg was lag (and as an aside horse was harse.) My mother’s side pronounced egg as āgg and leg as lāg (but a horse was a horse of course of course.)
Speaking of astraddle, we had a little bull calf that Daddy wanted to break to yoke. One day Harold went to feed it and just as he opened the door to the pen, the calf made a break for freedom. It thought it could run between his legs but it was a little too big and got stuck. So here they go, out across the pasture. Cowboy Harold astraddle of his magnificent steed. Only he was looking toward the wrong end.
5 for 5, we referred to accessories to a crime as aggers and hissors.
At last, I was finally familiar with all the terms in one of the vocabulary tests. Also,pretty, well composed photos of mountain stream in winter.
Tipper,
I think Ann Applegarth got it right. The TV tried to change the way we talk. I really liked all my teachers in school, but we had to learn the Mrs. Poppin’s
way to use words like “the rains of Spain are mainly in the Plains.” I’d druther say “how now, brown Kow.”
I know and use all these Appalachian words and I got a kick out of Miss Cindy’s
comment “what King?” …Ken
I am very familiar with all of them and use most of them. I say agg too.
My grandpa used afeared instead of afraid. ” I’m afeared that boy has gone and got himself in a real mess this time.”
Yea, got all ‘cept agg. (Pats self on back. 😉 In the Ozarks we said egg/egged.
While the words are not common around me, I was able to decipher their meanings. I did very well today – a hundred percent. I must admit that I loved the photos, especially the first one.
I grew up with and use every one of these. I spell #1 as aig. That is how I pronounce egg and I use it without fail.
I also agree about being atopof a ladder.
I also say warsh for that word spelled wash, my then 6 yo DGS corrected me, but that pronunciation isn’t going anywhere.
It used to be common here in this “settlemint” to hear things like: I’ve got a “good mInd” to whup that young’un fer that. Or “hit looks like hit’s about to “come up a cloud”.
Of course we all are starting to sound alike since TV has been here for so long. Outlander in-migration is a factor, too, I guess.
I know all of these words and I am proud to be from Western North Carolina. When I use words like these my kids will say I have my own dictionary.
I’m familiar with all five today. I rarely hear them now but did when Mom and Dad were alive.
Heard all of these!! I grew up in West Tn and a lot of verbs had “a” put in front of them. Of course this in waning as the old folks leave us.
“Astraddle” brought back a memory from long ago. My adolescent brother and his friends loved to play outside after dark just chasing each other & fooling around. One of them climbed up on the smokehouse & jumped off & landed astraddle of one of the clotheslines. Of course the damage to his manly parts was greatly dramatized.
For #1 I have always used egg, I don’t know #2. I have always used or known about #’s 3,4,5. I would hate for the Appalachian language to die off. I think the language spices things up a bit, I love to hear it!
Pam
scrap=n-sewgranny.blogspot.com
Yes, I’ve heard them all!
My test score was 100%! Where I’m from, we tend to say two or three words together after adding “a” at the beginning. “He was clear atopof that ladder when he fell.” No wonder his head is abustin’.
Tipper,
In your first vocabulary word….a tiny err was noticed?
1. Agg: to egg on… I believe that should be “to aig on”! ha Sorry, the devil made me do it!
Gotch’em all….
Thanks Tipper,
I also agree with Judy’s comment!
All of these terms are new to me, but “akinned” strikes a chord. Our family tree in 18th century South Carolina, where our people lived before pioneering to Tennessee in 1800, has two successive generations of second and third cousins marrying each other. “Akinned” is a great word to express their convoluted inter-relation.
I wish there was a like button for Judy’s comment because that is exactly how I feel. Once our beautiful language is gone it is just gone. I never hear some of those expressive words once so common when I was a child. I had almost forgotten about agg even though my sisters and I were constantly agging each other. I have to go to The Blind Pig to get my vocabulary fix. My new year’s resolution is to use more words that spellcheck doesn’t like!
I knew them all except agg. I’m sure I’ve used aggravatingest a time or two!
I got A+
Amen to Judy Mincey’s comment! I think that TV is the demon that has caused lovely, interesting regional accents and words to decline and die.
I’m grateful that I have lived in a time when folks could be identified by the way they speak as being from a particular part of the U.S.
All but Agg. Unless that is pronounced “aig” — the way I and almost everyone I have ever known pronounce the word egg. But if it is pronounced “ag” (as in the word agriculture), I haven’t heard it.
All but aggressive I use and hear used. I say egg.
All but aggressive I use and hear used. I say egg.
All but aggressive I use and hear used. I say egg.
All but aggressive I use and hear used. I say egg.
It doesn’t happen very often, but this time, I knew all of the terms.
Now that my domicile is in Middle Georgia instead of the beloved mountains of North Georgia where I grew up and lived most of my life, I don’t hear these now as I did around Choestoe, my homeplace. But I’m very familiar with them, and would still use them myself–and do–when talking to those with “like language” to what I heard when young. Colorful and meaningful, and these words get our points across quite well!
Aced this one! At our house, we sometimes added an extra syllable to pronounce it “agoodmind.” For example, “I’ve agoodmind to tan your hide if you don’t stop pesterin’ your brother.”
G’mornin’-
I’m five-for-five today, them’s regular words around here..
I know all these words Tip. Heard them all my life. My mother used to tell me I was murdering the King’s English, to which I replied….wait for it….”What King?”
Tipper–All are quite familiar to me, and I’ll add a few comments. I’ve often heard “agg” used with “hiss”–“There was a whole crowd of boys “agging and a hissing for a fight.”
My good friend Larry Proffitt, who is one of your readers, just yesterday commented to me that we mountain folks don’t say “go hunting” or “go fishing.” Instead, we say “I’ going a-hunting or a-fishing.”
Jim Casada
I am familiar with all these a words. I hear them less these days as language becomes more uniform. Not sure that is a good thing, losing flavor.