Never heard of (or not to recall if so) “minsey”. Have heard “awful particlar”. We didn’t have the resources to be real particular about anything. When folks did that they were liable to be said to “have got above their raisin’.” I have a question though about a word. Do folks up Brasstown way call little yellow chicks “diddles”? That’s all we ever called them in southeast KY when I was a kid. My neighbor, a chicken farmer here in the edge of the mountains in Georgia, did not know that word.
—Ron Stephens
diddle (also did, diddler, diddly, diddy, doodle, doodling)
A noun A baby chicken or a duckling. See also biddy, deedie, dibbler.
1925 Dargan Highland Annals 196 For the diddlies, we carried strips from an old sawmill and made coops which we could set about in sunny places. 1948 Still Nest 21 She saw herself yesterday hiding in the brood house playing with newly hatched diddles…and the newly hatched diddles moist from egg scrambling to her lap, walking under her spread palms. 1949 Arnow Hunter’s Horn 5 They’s a old hen—that old dominecker, th one th hawk pulled her tail feathers out—she hid her nest out an has hatched eleven diddles right here, nearly September…
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
Papaw answered Ron’s question saying:
“We call them “dibbies”! Daddy raised chickens for hatching eggs. They were only allowed to lay for a couple of years then they went away. After they were gone Daddy cleaned and disinfected the barn and in a few days we had thousands of new “dibbies” to raise.”
So there’s another variation.
I’ve came across diddle for baby chicken during my years of celebrating Appalachia, but I’ve never heard anyone say it that I can recall.
More interesting information from the dictionary:
diddle as a verb: 1981 Whitener Folk-Ways 61 Diddle as a verb in mountain speech means to “fool around; waste time; pretend to be busy at accomplishing a task.” It suggests cheating or pretending.
diddy: used as an interjection to mean come when calling young chickens or ducklings.
I might have heard someone say they were just diddling around, but I’m not sure. I enjoyed that definition of the word because it reminded me of a girl I used to work with. She was a favorite of pretty much everyone because of her sunny disposition, but those who worked closely with her noticed she rarely actually did any work. She got away with it by running here and there talking about how busy she was to anyone who would listen 🙂 Now I know she was diddling.
Last night’s video: Big Putting Up Day: Chow Chow & Grape and Blackberry Jelly.
Tipper
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My great aunt and uncle had chicken houses and I loved it when they would get a new batch of “doodles” to raise about every 6 weeks or so. We lived in rural Banks county Ga. so I remember baby chicks being called this in our area of the world.
They would let us kids go with them to help with the chores sometimes, and I remember wanting to just play with the “doodies” she called them.
My Mother… born and raised in SE Ky until he was nine years of age then left to live in Central Ky. called baby chicks diddles, all her life.
We’un’s might not a knowed diddly squat but we knowed how to raise up a bunch of doodles up that holler, they loved nuthin better than them apples off the tree of the ole biddy who lived next door.. and we knowed not to be knockin them apples offen the tree of that ole biddy fer them or she’d come a hollerin at us fer lollygaggin around instead of keeping the doodles out of her yard..
My Ma always told me “don’t be diddling around! We got to get the floors mopped”
In the game of darts, there is a term, ‘diddle for the middle’. It refers to throwing for the bullseye and the first one in is the one who starts a game.
Hello Miss Tipper, Growing up if you ask my daddy where he was going, he’d answer, “diddy-war-diddy ain’t no town, ain’t no city, just a little place called diddy-war-diddy.” This never made much sense to my siblings and I, but it would crack us up. Daddy was a person who grew up a young adult during WWII. I believe that was what some of our soldiers would answer with when folks wrote asking “where are you now?” The government wouldn’t let them say where they were going or where they were. So that would be what they’d answer with .
Diddles and Biddies was common in my area – Biddies seemed to be used most often in reference to baby chicks. By the way, Harriette Simpson Arnow was family. She was my grandmother’s niece. Her writings are based on my childhood home area of Kentucky.
We called the baby chicks biddies. I have not heard diddles! I have heard diddling around which meant doing something that didn’t amount to anything!
I’ve not heard baby chicks called that before. I’m always learning something new on your blog Tipper, either from you or the readers.
My mama always called the baby chicks biddies. I have also heard that name referring to a grumpy woman. We have always said diddly squat as in you don’t know diddly squat; or he wasn’t doing diddly squat, as in he wasn’t doing anything.
I’ve never heard baby chicks called diddles before, but it conjures up a memory of what my mom used to say. Referring to a tiny bit of knowledge of something or an amount of something she would say, for instance, “He don’t know diddly poop about it”. Another example would be,
“I was so tired today I didn’t do diddly poop”. Makes me laugh to think how small diddly poop is.
Had to giggle at “papaw”‘s recollection of the word “diddle” having a carnal connotation. As an adult, I too have the same recollection – LOL!!! But as a child, I used the word on a daily basis.
My young years (infant to 12 years old) was spent on my Grandparents Chicken Farm and Grocery Store located 70 miles south of Pittsburgh, PA – at the northern portion of the Appalachian region. My farm chore jobs changed over the years, but my first recollection of baby chicks was that they were called “Biddy” (singular) and “Biddies” (plural).
My mother’s nick name was “Bid” – short for Biddy. It was funny to hear my grandparents call her that, even far into their adult years. It was always used as a term of love and affection toward my mom.
I also remember hearing my grandparents talk about….”remember that old Biddy that used to come in the store with a big chaw in her mouth and buy cans of snuff?….” In that case, it was not so much as a term of endearment, but rather a stab at her age, demeanor, and lifestyle.
Sure is fun to read the various names for a baby chick. Love all the wonderful memories and stories.
OH – and I had never heard the word “mincey”. There were never any picky eaters in my family. We ate what was served or go hungry. BUT – one of my friends is an extremely picky eater. So extreme that we have left restaurants because there is “nothing for her to eat” – UGH!!! Think I will try out the word “mincey” next time I see her – hmmmm…. maybe not, she may not be my friend anymore – or, maybe she’ll just tell me that I don’t know diddly squat – LOL!!! (I use that term all the time!)
Thanks so much and enjoy a beautiful day!!
Morning Everyone. Mostly growing up in California, by the beach and in “old Hollywood”. There used to be citrus farms. Right next to the movie studios. California used to be fun. I heard “dilly dally” and “lolly gagging” for wasting time. Diddly squat too. Here’s an unrelated question. Hardly and Grackles these last few months. This morning thousands on my property and the soy bean farm behind me. My acre is dry, hardly any rain, mostly trees. We do get weird worm or caterpillars in summer. Hope everyone is well. Anna from Arkansas.
All the folks I knew in eastern KY called baby chicks diddies or dids.
Shirl, yes we also called the baby chicks, “diddies” or “dids.” I was born in Letcher County, Ky.
Hmm. Where I lived “Biddle” was a common surname. I guess they must have raised chickens . . .
My Ky/Ohio family had some chickens when I was growing up. We called the little ones “diddies.” I’ve heard “diddlin around” and “someone didn’t know diddley squat about something”, also “diddling around” for fooling around and doing nothing.
We called them widdies, but I have heard biddies. I still raise chickens and have baby widdies… I have this passion to try to learn how to do everything my grandmother knew how to do. She kept chickens so I wanted chickens. She once operated on one of her hens, but that I have not attempted!
Our baby chicks were biddies and nothing else. As for diddling around, pretending to be working, I saw that in the army. We knew those types by the clipboards they usually carried.
Gene, during the 38 years I worked at Michelin, I quickly learned if you carried a clipboard along with a stopwatch you could do and get buy with anything. Most of what these people did involved them diddlin while they were making it harder on the ones actually operating the machines. They were called IE but the workers had another name you don’t hear in church for them!
I have always heard the old timers say that someone didn’t know diddley squat. meaning that they didn’t know nothing.
I’ve heard diddly as in “they don’t know diddly “.
Diddle/diddling has a much more carnal meaning in my experience. I hesitate to use the word because of its wanton connotation.
Biddies are brooding hens and old women who act like them even after their brood has long ago flown the coop.
We called them biddies. Grandaddy in Sevier County, TN raised them to take to market back in the 50’s.
Never used the word diddle, but I often still use the word piddle, to mean doing nothing but looking busy. Or rather working but not accomplishing anything other than killing time.
Well, I was raised up on and own a “poultry ranch”. At least that is the way one of my just older than I boisterous neighbors told me he explained to strangers he’d meet “out on the road” across the nation as he was driving an over the road truck. He went on to say that it sounded a lot better than saying one was reared on a “chicken farm” or just a farm. I too was raised on a “poultry ranch” according to him, but for me and my folks, we were just “farmers” who raised chickens. At our peak production we “growed off” about120k chickens every six weeks. From 1968 to 1988 (ice storm caved in 3-50′ X 300′ houses) we mostly grew broilers or eating chickens. They chicken company would deliver baby chicks via a “white school bus” modified for that purpose (solid white inside and out). We grew chickens on contract and would usually keep and care for them about six weeks when the chicken catchers would arrive at our farm around dusky dark to catch the birds at night. Sometimes, the chicken catchers would still be there the next morning finishing up the monumental task of individually putting hands on each of the 60k birds and ramming them inside a wood/wire (later plastic) coup. Inside the bus were white plastic “trays” with 100 baby “just hatched” chicks. They were usually arranged in stacks of 6-10. On the day of delivery, we’d usually receive 60k for one farm and then a quarter mile down the road we’d get another 60k another a couple of weeks apart. Usually, we tried to stagger them for equipment and labor distribution as the the first two weeks are the most labor intensive. After that, the automation kicks in and takes care of the majority of the work. I said all of that to comment on your post by saying that my mother, who worked most of her life in the poultry farming referred to baby chicks as “biddies”/biddys. I never knew where the word originated but figured it was what she’d heard her mother, grandmothers, aunts, etc. refer to baby chickens (sometimes other baby animals too). The word seemed to be used almost exclusively by females. I’m not sure I ever heard a male human being refer to a baby chick as biddy.
My family raised the chicks,
that grew into the hens,
that laid the eggs,
that hatched into the chicks,
that rode the white bus to your family’s ranch,
where you grew them into meat birds.
We had Cornish hens and White Rock roosters (or the other way around) whose offspring were the Cornish Cross.
Geneaieve. I just read the little piece that Granny wrote about her family. I’ve never seen or heard this name before, and I can’t for the life of me come up with a pronunciation. Can someone give me a phonetic spelling, please? I’ve settle on Jenny-Eve. Close?
Joan- it is said like Jenna-vee 🙂
Most folks I knew called baby chickens “biddies.” Like Debbie said, I have heard diddlin or lolly gaggin all my life for people that were just “fooling around” doing nothing. I had my own word for people like this, I called them “flunckies.”
In my world a flunky is the one who did all the work while his superior did all the lollygagging. I was somebody’s flunky throughout my career.
Pawpaw, we the workers called ourselves pc’s- public commodes, the superiors or bosses were always “dumping” on us. This goes back to your comment from yesterday, my father in law’s Daddy would always buy a bunch of chicks in the spring of the year when he was a young boy and raise them up to eating size and then try to sell them. He said there would always be some left and sometimes it seemed like he was eating 3 meals of chicken everyday, as an adult he did not eat much chicken.
In New England, diddle means playing at working or avoiding work. Someone is diddling around when they’re either look like they’re working but they’re intentionally accomplishing nothing. A diddler busies himself doing nothing of value to avoid doing something useful.
I’m familiar with the term diddlin around. When I was a kid, my dad used to say don’t be diddlin around now!
In Carter County TN diddle was the only name I knew for the baby chicks.
The nursery rhyme “The Cow jumped Over The Moon” has “ diffle” . Hey diddle, diddle , the cat played the fiddle…
When I first started teaching at Mt. Roger’s K-12 school in Whitetop, Va in 1973, I first heard of diddles as referencing baby chicks. It was the only name used by kids and adults of the community in referring to chick’s.
Tipper, we use diddlin around or lolly gaggin for foolin around doing nothing. Not sure who started it, but I have heard it all my life. I take for granted all the sayings we use and how far back they come from. Thank you for keeping it all alive!
My husband’s grandmother who grew up in the Globe and Valley Crisis area called baby chicks dibbles.
I’ve heard during my life people referring to someone who didn’t know something about a subject matter as: he don’t know diddly squat.
I know where Globe is and Valley Crisis (Valle Crucis?) gave me a chuckle. Globe’s right up the road from Mortimer ain’t it?
We called baby chicks “doodles.” Coming from the holler, some people would say we didn’t know diddly squat.
Hunters Horn by Harriet Simpson Arnow is a great read!