“Before you leave I need you to go down to the basement and bring up some jars if you can.”
“Okay I don’t care to.”
Normally I don’t try to explain the conversations I share in my ongoing overheard series, but I thought I would today.
The conversation above was between Granny and me.
She’d been canning beans and needed me to get more jars from her stash in the basement since she can no longer maneuver the stairs.
When I said “I don’t care to” that meant I didn’t mind one bit and would be happy to go get the jars for her.
The phrase is one that’s often pointed out as unusual when the subject of Appalachian language is being discussed. Here’s a post I wrote about it a few year’s back: I Don’t Care To.
Last night’s video: Alex Stewart Portrait of a Pioneer 18.
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I have a distinct memory of contemplating this use of “I don’t care to” as a child. I’ve always used and heard it this way, but as a kid thinking about it I could understand how it would be confusing to some people. Of course, then I had no idea about dialect differences and that I myself was using a dialect, haha.
That’s one phrase common here in my neck of the woods. I just never really gave it a thought that someone would not know what I mean by that saying. Ha ha.
I’ve heard that phrase used many times, but it always meant the opposite of what it means in Appalachia. For that meaning, I’ve always heard and used, “I don’t mind (or care) if I do.”
As ever, I enjoyed the reading last night, Tipper.
Blessings to all . . .
These (“I don’t mind if I do & I don’t care if I do”) would mean opposite things, where I live in CNY. If you say, “I don’t mind if I do” it means you will go ahead and do it. Like: “Would you like another piece of pie?” “I don’t mind if I do!”. Meaning: I will eat another piece & not think anything of it. If you say “I don’t care if I do”, it means you will not do something. Like: “Would you like to go to the movies on Friday?”, “I don’t care if I do”. Meaning: I am not interested in going & most likely will not attend. If I told my granny, “I don’t care to” about going to the basement to get something, I’d probably get my mouth washed out with soap. It would be taken as sassy talk. Funny how simple words can mean different things to different regions. BTW: I did say a naughty word to my gram when I was 5 & did not know what it meant. I learned it from the bad kid in kindergarten. My gram DID wash my mouth out with soap. When my mom found out where I learned it from, I was completely forgiven. But let me tell ya, I never forgot what that soap tasted like!
Overheard at my Uncle Rush Mauney’s store about 1950…”Gimme a poke for my dope”.. He wanted a paper bag for his soft drank, er, I mean drink.
In my neck of the woods, Northeast Mississippi, “ I don’t care to” means I don’t won’t to. I have heard many times, “I don’t care if I do,” if someone was asked if they wanted another piece of cake-meaning yes I would like more cake. I still hear that from the older folks. I remember when I was a child, my grandmother would say “over yonder” if I asked where something was or where a place was. I then would ask her how far is “over yonder” and she would say, “ a short piece” so I never knew where the thing or place I was asking about was really at. So, I stopped asking.
If my siblings & I were acting up, she would tell us, “Ok, if you run a’staddle of something, don’t come crying to me.” I miss her & her sayings. Love the Jim Cassada video! Many thanks to you Tipper & your many commenters. You & them are indeed my virtual friends! It would be great to meet some of y’all someday! Randy, hang in there-you & the good Lord have this! Enjoy your comments & praying for you. Sending hugs to everyone!
I had a northern friend ask me to “clear up” this very thing for him once. He had asked several of his employees to do something and they responded “I don’t care to”. He thought they were saying “no” in a polite way. Hilarious! I explained that they were saying they didn’t mind doing it. A simple thing, you’d think, but it had him stymied! He was a nice fellow and checked with someone (happened to be me) before he got angry with his employees.
It’s a pretty common response in our family. Outsiders and new residents are baffled, surprised, upset and a various other misinterpretations. The smart ones ask us for a clarification. The eggshell people get upset.
I’ve never heard that phrase, but I like it. I wanted to tell you that I watched the interview with Mr. Jim Casada and it was so enjoyable. It’s so sweet how we all think our mama’s made the best fried chicken and always on Sunday! He has a wealth of knowledge and like you, Tipper I could listen to him all day. The reading last night made me so thankful for what I have. The struggles folks had back then was incredible and I found the part about the witch very interesting. I also agree with Randy about what was said about the BP&A gang feeling like virtual friends I have not met and Randy, you hang in there, you have been through a lot and the Lord has brought you through it. Prayers still going your way. Have a blessed day all!!
Most if the Appalachia speech you go over in your posts are totally new to me, living in Maryland, in the Mid-Atlantic. What’s baffling is that this phrase seems to mean exactly the opposite, depending on where you live.
Gloria, I guess I feel like the others about fried chicken except it would have to my mother in law’s. I think Jim mentions this in his other book but it don’t get any better than fried chicken cook in an Old cast iron frying pan in hog lard. When growing up , two chickens would be killed almost every Saturday morning at my grandparents home and cooked for Sunday dinner in the method I mentioned above. Granddaddy kept 6-8 chickens in a coop off the ground with a wire bottom floor and they were fed nothing but shell corn to eat. He did not want his eating chickens to run loose.
Today when there is so much concern about food safety, these Sunday dinners along with most of the other food would be left out on the table and just be covered with a table cloth -nothing refrigerated and I mean in homes with no air condition on the hot southern summer days and be ate again before going back to church for the evening service and no one ever getting food poisoning. Remember when the chicken got cold there would be white spots on it after it had been cooked in the lard.
Hey I am a blue blood Southern Baptist and there are at least three things you can count on when us Baptist get together, there will be an offering plate pasted around, fried chicken on the table and a fight if any one else sits in our seat. One of the signs a Baptist preacher looks for when he feels like he is being called to preach is to dream about fried chicken. I hope this does not make anyone mad, to me it is a sad day if you can’t poke some fun at yourself.
To me, that phrase means “no I don’t want to”. But I have a friend who uses it the way you do.
It is something I hadn’t heard before reading Blind Pig. I think I would have taken it to mean no. Glad to know the meaning here in Appalachia
To outsiders that phrase could be confusing, but I say it and never stop to think if it’s right or wrong.
It has been years since I was a teen that I heard my Grandmother say that to me. “I don’t care to”
Brings back a lot of fond memories to me, of Grandma cooking in the Fall; canning up the jars of vegetables, Jellies, etc… On Saturdays, the Morning Donuts are Not the size of the regular donuts you get at the store. More than 3 times that size. That was a lot of Donut for that. lol, I am older in my early 60’s now those days are long gone for me now. I look to when my Grandchildren come over and I cook and back with them. Life is too short not to try and pass on something to your grandchildren. Like making stickie rolls out of biscuits. short cut works roll each biscuit into a long slender piece. add sugar with cinnamon roll it up and bake it add icing glaze… the Kids just love it even now my grandkids do. Thank you
I’ve heard it before, but don’t think I’ve used it. I usually say, “I don’t mind”, which is basically saying the same thing.
I’m thinking maybe this is one of those Appalachianisms that is in danger of disappearing simply because we know folks from “off” don’t understand it. So between visiting folks and moving-in folks we are likely to be more aware, use a substitute and gradually just stop saying it altogether. I couldn’t say myself when I’ve said it. I most likely say, “I don’t mind a bit” now. We know it is safe with home folks but we, most of us anyway, probably don’t switch back and forth on a frequent basis.
Maybe this is why numerous commenters have mentioned slipping easily back into childhood speech. It is always there and needs no other opportunity than to be at ease among home folks. When we hear Appalachian again, even after long away, it ‘flips a switch’ in our head.
well, that’s the exact opposite of what i’ve always known! i’d have thought you didn’t want to if you’d said that to me!
Alex Stewart is a national treasure and I am following along with you on his conversations with John Rice Irwin, but even though I will have heard you read the book, I now would love to find a copy for myself. What a man he was! Well, both of them, really, Alex for sharing his life and memories with JRI and JRI for capturing his story and publishing it for the rest of us, as you yourself are doing. Yours is one of the best channels on YT!
Yes I have heard “I don’t care to” from older relatives. I haven’t used that phrase but will start using it. Ought to have fun explaining what I meant.
I don’t think I have heard the exact phrase, I will say I don’t care which means the same thing.
I want to say Thank You for the reply’s for me on yesterday’s blog. Someone else said it better than I could, all of the members are virtual friends that I have not met. I want to especially thank Tipper, she is a blessing to all of us.I found me a big acorn when I found the BP&A, I have Jim Casada to thank for that.
Me too, Randy. Jim told me about Tipper’s blog. It’s all good stuff!
I had never heard the phrase “I don’t care to” until today, and its meaning is the opposite of what I would have thought. It sounds like a refusal to comply instead of “Sure. I’ll be glad to.”
this is a case of “different strokes for different folks.”
The first time I heard that phrase, If you don’t care to, was when I moved to Blue Ridge, Ga. That is also when I heard ‘yuns’. I thought it meant you all or ya’ll, and it did. Some of those phrases are so sweet and to the point. I have to say, I do miss that part of Appalachia and the language that goes with it. Of course, I had never been called a ‘flat lander’ til I arrived in that ‘northern’ town. And about Alex Stewart…what a chapter of that precious man’s life. When you read about someone eating a rat, I immediately thought of a rat being a cousin of a squirrel…and I could never eat either one of those. I am sure if I was hungry or one of my children were hungry, I would do anything to keep them from starving. To say that we as a generation away from that time, we are so very spoiled and I hope never to be in that situation ever.