I wrote about the word stog back in 2015, but so many folks commented about the word in yesterday’s post that I thought I would revisit it.
stog around, stug around verb phrase To move or go around in a heavy or clumsy manner.
1925 Dargan Highland Annals 247 But they’s all skeered to marry Nathe, an’ no wonder when he kept stuggin’ round the country lookin’ like the hind wheels o’ destruction. 1967 DARE = to move around in a way that makes people take notice of you (Gatlinburg TN). 1997 Montgomery Coll. (Oliver); He’d go stoggin around the country (Jones).
[OED stog v 2 “to walk clumsily or heavily”; EDD stog v 3 “to walk heavily or awkwardly, to plod”; cf SND stodge; CUD stog; Web3 stog Scottish perh alteration of stodge “to trudge through, or as it through muck and mire”]
—Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
The photo above is a great representation of the statement I made in yesterday’s post about stogging around the Smoky Mountains with Don Casada. The photo was taken in early 2012. We’d spent the day with Don and his sweet wife Susan looking at old homesites and enjoying good fellowship. Here’s a post I wrote about a graveyard we visited on the trip.
Stogging is a wonderful word. The very sound it makes as it comes off your tongue brings to mind the action it describes. I grew up with Pap using the word so it’s been part of my vocabulary for as long as I can remember.
“He was stogging around out in the woods and came acrosst the most beautiful bunch of daffodils you ever saw, there was just gobs of them!”
Last night’s video: Testing TIPPER on Appalachian Words and Phrases.
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I have never heard stog but I like it. You continue to expand my vocabulary. Thanks
Love the word. It’s a perfect picture of walking heavy footed in the woods or somewhere else. I had used slogging before, but that always referred to walking through a muddy or mucky place. Thanks for sharing with us.
Great video yesterday!
It was hard to tell who was having the most fun, you or the girls.
Glad you didn’t have to clean either a closet or the lapidary.
I have never heard this word stog. I think I will have a use for it now. I have heard slog used in a similar way.
I love your blog.
Hadn’t never heard that phrase before. Good one.
My Mother often accused me of “stoggin around” as I wandered through the house rather aimlessly.
Great word!
Like several other commenters here, I always heard “slog/slogging” and not “stog/stogging”. Slogging to me always seemed more like walking through mud or puddles, I don’t know why. Since hearing you say “stogging”, I always envision someone stomping around on dry ground. I do like both words. So, maybe, I will use the word I grew up with when describing someone mucking/sloshing their way through wet ground, and use your word when they are walking on dry ground. That will keep it straight, at least in my mind!
Donna. : )
I knew quite a few of the words used in your video and I remember seeing gobs of daffodils out at the old place:}
I have never heard stog. We tramp or tromp through the woods . I kind of like the Australian “going for a walkabout”.
New word to me – very descriptive! I like it and may begin using it!! Take care and God bless!
It’s surprising that my parents never used the word as far as I can remember. They used words that were never heard outside of eastern KY. Stogging must be one of the words that didn’t make it across the mountains.
I love words like this! They make me smile. One of my favorite words that you talked about on your channel is Rip-snorter. That one makes me smile even bigger.
I really loved watching you last night being tested by the girls. I don’t think I have ever seen you laugh so much in a video. It was great.
I hadn’t heard the word used before but in its context I figured it meant a kind of leisure type of walk. Thank you for explaining it since some of us like myself are not yet but a year in your blog. We appreciate you!
Would “stawging” be the phonetic spelling of the word? If so I remember the word from my youth, if not I remember it from 2015 on the Blind Pig.
We were taught not to walk like that. We tried to slip through the woods as silently as possible. “Indian walking” was what we called it. We tried to walk in each other’s footprints if there was more than one walking. We didn’t move limbs aside then let them loose as we passed them. We waited until the next person approached then hand it off to him. The last person in line returns it to it’s natural position.
Sometimes, if you wanted to announce your presence or scare something away, we made as much noise as possible. I guess that’s what stogging is for.
My grandma calls it Indian walking too. She used to say for me to quit scuffing my feet and walk silent as an Indian.
I noticed the “stog” yesterday and had to smile. But somehow I thought of it as “st – og” with “og” pronounced like “Og, king of Bashan”. Only later did it dawn on me that was the word I heard and likely used growing up but we pronounced as the first half of “stoggie” (a cigar). Most used as “stoggin”, for example, “He’s been stoggin’ around all morning.”
Our meaning was, as you referenced, either the exaggerated walking that was body language for being aggravated and wanting everybody to know it or a heavy walking because of aches, pains or stiffness. Which one was figured out from circumstances. I do more stoggin now, not the young nimble body I once was. We went stoggin yesterday and my body complains about it. Time was my body had to convince my mind, now its reversed.
Like your cornbread, I am aiming to take up the word STOG the first chance I get to use such a grand word!!! I hope everybody is having a joyous season preparing for Christmas!!!! Blessings to all!!!
Sorry for the obvious spelling mistakes
My ignorance of my phone is
Pandemic
Have heard and used the word slog or slogged all my life but but never heard the term stop or stoging
What is the difference?
I stiffed to the top of Springer Mt or I slogged?
Bill-For me, slog brings to mind walking through water or mud. The thing I love most about language is how it varies in usage from place to place 🙂
My husband’s family came from the Carolinas,not sure if North or South, but they used so many of these words and phrases. Reading your blogs helps me realize where so much of their vocabulary came from. Thanks Tipper
Well, I’d never heard the word stog until yesterday, but I like it. My vocabulary has grown! I’ve been stogging around all my like and now I know what I’m doing.
Yep, that’s a good old country word. I used to walk with a heavy foot sometimes and was accused of stogging around. I didn’t much like the description to I learned to lighten my foot fall.
That’s a good old country word!