It’s time for this month’s Appalachian Vocabulary Test. I’m sharing a few videos to let you hear some of the words. To start the videos click on them and then to stop them click on them again.
1. Jack up: to scold, find fault with, bear down on. “He kept tracking dirt in after I asked him not to a hundred times so I had to jack up on him.
2. Jaggedy: having a ragged, frayed, or sharp edge. “Be careful, the edge of that broken jar is all jaggedy.”
3. Jaw: a person’s cheek. “She was the cutest little girl you ever seen! She had those jaws that just made you want to squeeze them.”
4. Jawed: to talk idly and at length. “I told him he wouldn’t be so tired if he didn’t set up half the night jawing with them down at the store.”
5. Job: to stab, strike, or thrust. “When the girls were little I was forever warning them not to run with sticks. I was afraid they’d job their eye out.”
I’m familiar with all of this month’s words, although I hear jack up used in a slightly more aggressive way like: “I’m going to have to go down there and jack him up if he don’t keep his long pointy nose outta my business.”
I’ve also heard of jacking someone’s jaw which means a fist will connect in a fierce manner with another’s face.
Hope you’ll leave me a comment and tell me how you did on the test!
Tipper
I grew up in the deep South and Eastern Tenn so yes on every vocabulary word . I learned them at my great grandpa’s knee . Still do use some today . I live in the UK now and it’s very rare to hear old south words . When I do , I look to see who’s jawin’ .
Heard and understood them all growing up in Macon County. NC .
2017 Urban dictionary version of “jacked up” is – not working properly or as intended.
Jaggedy is the only one I use or remember; unless, it was a car that was jacked up to put a tire on.
I’m running behind. lol I was still thinking about “catching a cold.” Yesterday’s post. I was warned about that all my growing up life. lol
Oh, and I forgot. “Jacked Up” is what gets done to pickup trucks here in Burke County. Some uv’em you need a ladder to climb up in. The rednecks that don’t like to be called rednecks say they are “lifted.” I’m a proud redneck and my pickup is “jacked up” a little but it come from the factory thataway.
Where I come from people who like to talk too much are flappy Jawed.
As well as getting Jobbed with sharp objects we get jabbed, poked, stabbed and stuck.
In my wife’s family the females like to pinch all the new babies’ fat little jaws. They think of it as a rite of passage. Same with shoving the babies’ faces in the cake at their 1st birthday party. The babies cry and all the adults laugh. I call it child abuse.
I better go before somebody says I am getting flappy jawed!
I have heard and used all of today’s words but Jab is more often used than Job when referring to stabbing.
I knew all of these and have used all except maybe “jaggedy”.
I saw you on YouTube and you were using the word buss. It’s from the German word for kiss but it’s pronounced like boose (moose). Not bus like a long vehicle with many passengers. I understand you are trying to read this out of a book. But I thought you would like to know.
My goodness! Y’all talk the same as I do!
Yes, I’ve heard them all, and used most of them. When we use jacked up we usually mean something messed up, like “he sure jacked up that table when he tried to fix it.”) We also use jabber (talk a lot about nothing), jerry-rigged (kinda like jacked up but it works instead of messing something up), and rarely I’ve also heard jackanapes (as in someone being an a**).
Tipper,
Heard all of these but some used a bit different. For instance, I would get all jacked-up (angry, aggravated, frustrated) if someone kept tracking in mud on the floor…been happenin’ lately as garden plus rain continues…
Jaggety and raggety are sometimes used together alike…My jeans looks raggety since they are jaggety all around the hem!
He thinks he has a strong jaw, but if he keeps up with that nonsense it might get broke!
I think “dimpled-jawed sweet cheeks” was my granny’s favorite saying, since most of the grandchildren had dimples…Ha Sometimes we can’t go to K-town without running into this one feller who will “jaw on” forever!
I “jobbed” that pick right into my shoe. It didn’t go in my foot but “scared and hurt” so bad that in my mad fit, I took that pick and “stobbed” it right in the ground taking half the ‘mater row with it!….We would use “job” and “stob” in like ways! Ha
Thanks Tipper always love these vocabulary tests…
PS…Please tell Jim Casada that I enjoyed his article in the “Smoky Mountain Living” magazine this month…The story he wrote of this lady makes me feel like I’ve been awfully lazy in my life at times!
I doubt you will publish this but I have to tell it anyway. My cousin Crazy Joe had been admonished for quoting Judges 15:16 verbatim, “With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” He was told he should replace the word “ass” with “jack.” So, the next time he repeated it, it came out as “With the assbone of a jack have I slain a thousand men.”
That happened in Lee Clampitt’s seventh grade classroom. I was there. I witnessed it!
All words today are used around here. We said, I’ll box your jaws if you keep on talking.
Peggy L.
All words are very common to me. We don’t exactly use ‘jack up’ the same way. I say light them up when I refer to scolding someone and jacked up when a child is hyper from eating too much candy. When my girls were small, they heard the same warning about jobbing their eyes out.
I hear jack used as in I’ll jack your jaw. This reminds me of a fist fight I had in high school with a boy nickname Jaws. He did have huge jaws.
I hear jack used as in I’ll jack your jaw. This reminds me of a fist fight I had in high school with a boy nickname Jaws. He did have huge jaws.
I hear jack used as in I’ll jack your jaw. This reminds me of a fist fight I had in high school with a boy nickname Jaws. He did have huge jaws.
I hear jack used as in I’ll jack your jaw. This reminds me of a fist fight I had in high school with a boy nickname Jaws. He did have huge jaws.
I have not heard jack up ever. I am sitting with an acquaintance and we agree we have both heard jacking his jaw referring to talking a lot. Also mentioned chin music as expression used in Monroe County for a wife complaining or nagging. I hope you never run out of words on Appalachian vocabulary.
I can’t decide if I am an honest witness. Each one seems as familiar as my old jeans and I immediately know what they mean. But as to knowing when or where I have heard them or used them myself, I draw a blank.
As usual, I feel like I once heard and used a much more colorful and expressive dialect but have lost touch with much of it and now must have very lackluster speech. Makes me homesick for long ago and far away.
All interesting wirxs this mo nth. We use them all except jack up. That is new to me
I have not heard “job” used this way. I agree with you about “jacking somebody up”!
I’m familiar with all of the words today. My g-dad used job all the time. He would tell us not to run with sticks because we might fall and job a hole in us or job an eye out.
I don’t hear it used anymore. The rest I hear from time to time.
In regard to jaws, it was common growing up to hear about someone getting their jaws boxed. It referred to getting slapped in the face. “That boy said something ugly to her and she really boxed his jaws!”
Tipper–All are commonplace to me, although I hear (and use) “jawing” more than “jawed.”
Jim Casada
I’ve heard all these, Tip, and like you what I’ve heard of jack up meant physical contact between a fist and a jaw!
All of these are common to us. I often wonder where in the world our people came up with these uses of words. Larry Proffitt