Recently we worked all day in the big garden. There was much to do. We hoed the corn and fertilized it. Then we planted a few more rows of corn. I weed-eated around the garden and Matt tilled between the rows. We also hoed out the beans and fertilized them. To say we were plumb wore out is an understatement.
So many different ways to say you’re tired. One of the ones I use often is to say “I’m tired out.” Doesn’t even make sense when I type it, but I say it because Granny and Pap did.
Speaking of Granny. She’s always said she was born tired.
Other tired sayings that come to mind.
- plumb tuckered out
- worn slap out
- tired as a dog
- give out
- tired as all get out
- my tank is empty and I can’t go
- petered out
- bushed
- beat
Tired can be a good feeling. Especially in the garden.
After a full day of hard laboring one can stand back and survey what they have accomplished there in the dirt amidst the growing plants in the beautiful great outdoors knowing your hard work will be paid in full by the bounty produced to feed your family.
Last night’s video: Falling Out in Appalachia.
Tipper
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Tipper,
I wanted to add something to “Sayins.”
My cousin when he got older and sick would always say this when I asked him at church how he was feeling. He always said “I feel like a redworm with its guts slung out.” Caroll is gone now, but I always remember that. God bless.
Me too, Tipper!
A guy stopped by a couple weekends ago to ask if I needed my lawn mowed (I’d been lazy for a couple weeks). I told him I usually do it on my own but asked him if he did sod removal. He said he does.
So, there is now a foot wide strip going down both sides of the sidewalk between the front stoop and the city walk, separated from the lawn with paving stones; a 4.5 x 5 foot patch on the one side up nearer the house where all my irises will go eventually, and then Alex tilled up a 15 x 25 foot section of the back yard for a garden and put a fence up around it (just some tomato cage wire with T-posts) for anti-varmint measures.
I put in a line of pole beans along the back 15′ side, then along each of the two 25 foot sides I cleared off nine 1-square foot areas to try square foot gardening with. Apparently you can put 4 bush beans, 9 beets, 9 turnips, 16 carrots, 16 onions, one pepper, or one tomato in each square foot. I bought two tomato plants and two pepper plants at the garden center and went and got onion sets, and bean, beet, and turnip seeds at the farm store.
Oh, and in two dirt mounds in the area behind the garage I put in North Georgia candy roaster and cushaw squash. I gave you credit for introducing them to me, and put in the name of the blog and the Youtube channel in the email I sent out to family and friends. Hopefully, you’ll get a few more followers, 🙂
Douglas, that all sounds great 🙂 Thank you for telling others about our endeavors!! We appreciate you!
For me, it is “I have been shot out of a cannon and hit a bloody stump” when we are plumb worn out
My Papaw used to say, “My git up an’ go done got up and went.”
Tipper, I so enjoy watching you and family on YouTube.Y’all are like family. Sometimes I say “I could go to their house sit down at their table and feel right at home. Even though I grew up in East Texas and still live here, we talk the same way y’all do. We got it from my grandma who we spent whole summers with and proud of it.Love your whole family.Thanks for sharing your lives with us.❤️
Vickie, you are so kind! We appreciate all you do for us. Thank you!!
Tipper, a lot of the ones you mentioned are familiar to me. Here in Southeast Kentucky these “tired” sayings are common to me.
– My get up and go feels like it’s got up and went.
– I’m wore to the frazzle.
– I feel like I’ve been sent for and couldn’t make it.
– Stick a fork in me, I’m done.
– I’m gave out.
– I’m done in.
– I’m spent.
– I’m about out of gas. I don’t have much left in the tank. I’m running on fumes.
Having grown up in New England (Connecticut), I grew up with pooped, knackered, drained and Joed (which I never understood the meaning of but felt sorry for Joe, having his own saying!). Now that we are retired and live in Phoenix, only very few people get what I’m saying. By the way, Tipper (great name!) your garden is scrumptiously beautiful!!!! The only thing that grows in our backyard are weeds, but we do have a Baby Dove Bird Nursery every year when the Mama & Daddy Dove’s use the bakers rack on the back patio to nest their eggs. Best of everything bright and beautiful to you and all!
Good morning from Central Oklahoma!! Well, it’s getting closer to wheat harvest time!! Say 2 harvest crews going south to Texas….with the climate change harvest can range from mid May to end of June. Looking good from the kitchen window.
Yesterday as I was mowing the 2 acres on the riding lawn mower, I had to reset the cutting length….well, needless to say, I said out loud “Lord I don’t have enough mashed tators in my butt to get the mowing deck up…would you please give this girl a break” I’m really tired… soooo needless to say…the good Lord gave
me a kick!! Yeah…mowing done!!
Today, I shall attempt the weedeating!!
Have a WONDERFUL Memorial Day weekend
Hugs and kisses to Granny
Good morning Tipper. Love the picture of you & Matt. 🙂 Along with the last 6 of your list of way to say ‘plumb wore out’ I grew up with and still use: my battery is dead; I’m burned out; I’m dragging my tail; I’m wrung out & hung to dry; I feel like I’ve been dragged through a knothole backwards. It is interesting on the many ways to say something!
How about “wore to a frazzle”? That’s pretty tired too!
I grew up in the Deep South (panhandle of Florida) and definitely heard tuckered out and my Granny said she was slap wore out a lot!
I have mostly heard and said I’m slap-dab wore out. Those words could have described how I have felt for most of this month. Preparing and planting the garden, re-planting it, and making seven huge cemetery arrangements has kicked my behind. Like you said, it’s a good kind of tired.
I have heard most of these sayings, too. This has nothing to do with sayings, but accents. I live in southern KY and my sister and I were eating at a restaurant in Lexington (125 miles north of us). The waitress asked where we were from because she loved our accent. Living in the same state, but accents so different.
My mama always says she’s “pooped” when she’s been working hard. Every Wednesday, after taking care of three little munchkins for ten hours, I am worn out. They add such joy to our lives, and they also wear us out for sure. Being worn out at the end of a day makes me feel like I have accomplished something. It’s a good feeling.
I think your list of tired descriptions illustrate how people, Appalachianers especially maybe, like to play with language. Kinda like we don’t care much for plain speaking and want to liven it up. Of course we don’t get “tired”. We get ” tarred”. The worse kind is the “heart dropsy” where you say, “I’m so tarred I’ve got the heart dropsy, dropped down and ain’t got the heart to get up.” But you’re right about how satisfying it is to see the garden in good shape. I worked in my little garden yesterday and it is shaping up nicely green.
“Plumb tuckered out”, heard it all my life. still not sure what a “tuck” is.
Tipper–
Too pooped to pop.
Flat out frazzled.
Tired to the bone.
Also, for Linda Johnson’s information, there are a number of scholarly books on the Melungeons and one of the university presses (I think it is Mercer University Press) has a series dealing with these people of mystery. For many years there was an annual gathering, and still may be, of Melungeons.
My dad would say he was tuckered out after working 2 jobs and working with my mother in the garden and doing all the repair work (like Matt) at home. Not once do I remember ever having a repair man come to our house!
After hoeing watermelons ALL day long in the hot sun, my grandaddy remarked after reaching the shade of Pecan tree, “boys, I’m all fagged out”. I heard him say it several more times and always thought it odd. Then one day I asked Google and it is a real term meaning “I’m plumb wore out”, literally. Have safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend.
“I’m tuckered out” is a saying I’ve heard.
and I forgot to say. I never get tired but I stay tarred!
“too pooped to putter” Daddy would say.
I’ve used most of them sayings when I’m tired, but I guess “I’m wore out” and “I’m tuckered out” comes to mind the most. I guess it just depends on how tired and my old body’s pain level I’m feeling determines what comes out of my mouth. Like when I’m hurting real bad from weeding, mowing and working the garden all in one day, “I’m just beat”.
You are right, hard work give out is a good kind of tired! We had that Wednesday and yesterday. Wednesday we got a half yard of topsoil and had to empty that out of the truck bed. Yesterday we added the soil to one of our raised beds that my husband added another level to it so that it is a little deeper for the tomato plants. Last year some of the tomato roots were running just under the top level of soil so we thought maybe they needed the dirt to be a little bit deeper. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, it was a good day. The weather could not have been any nicer.
Rebecca, Happy Anniversary 🙂
HOW ABOUT BUSY AS A ONE-LEGGED MAN IN A BUTT -KICKING CONTEST!
Thank you Tipper.
I’ve heard and used tuckered out, worn out, petered out, tired as all get out, beat, tired as a dog and tank empty. So many colorful ways to say I’m tired! There is nothing like being tuckered from a good hard day in the garden and then sitting in the rocking chair on the deck with a glass of sweet tea admiring it all.
I’ve said wore slap out all my life. I think I’m like your mother and was born tired, lol. My Daddy used to make us kids giggle by saying, “I’m so t-u-r-d tired I could f-a-r-t faint”. Well, I’m fixing to go work in my garden until it’s time to go play Trivial Pursuit at the library. Retired life is so much fun!
We used to say, “I’m pooped” when that tired. Sounds funny now. But we listened to Burl Ives a lot and he had some strange lyrics!
I thought of a coworker saying at the end of a day’s work “stick a fork in me, I’m done.”
I have a friend that says that, now I’ve started saying it. A pretty apt description of how I feel sometimes after a busy day at work. lol
Hi Tipper! This Delphi Madcaps. My real name is Linda Johnson.
My family used the “give out” a lot.
I love your channel so much.
I’ve been wanting to ask you a question for some time now.
Have you ever heard of the Melungeon of Appalachia? I’ve studied about them quite a bit. Reason being, I wondered if my own family were Melungeon.
My grandpa on my Mom’s side had many traits of the Melungeon. Grandpa was very dark complexioned. Coal black hair, and very beautiful light blue eyes. My mother and her sister, my aunt, had the same features.
I’ve traced as much as I can of my family’s roots. It’s a daunting task. Much I can’t remember.
It’s fascinating to research them, as there is somewhat of a mystique about them.
Thanks, Tipper! ❤️
Linda, thank you! I don’t know very much about them. Donnie Laws has a great video on his channel talking about them. If you’ve not seen it that might help 🙂
I have heard all of these. I sometimes say my get up and go has done got up and went. Nowadays because of my age and arthritis I can no longer go /work like I once could. This adds to my feeling of depression problem. I rode a mower and cut about 3-4 acres of grass yesterday for 2 of my sister in laws, when I got done my back was hurting and I was pretty much done for the day. My son did the trimming. I guess this has more to do with being lazy, I have heard it said “they were born tired and never got over it.”