Chapter One Mountain Speech Any piece of verbal art--be it a joke or a folktale or an anecdote--is the sum of its parts. The foundational part of that sum is language. We could make analogies about houses or engines or some such here, but we think most folks can visualize the ways words come together to create ideas. In school, we learned vocabulary through weekly word lists. In the formal structure of our schooling, we learned about nouns and how they work, verbs and how they work, the function of adjectives, whatever the heck it is that adverbs do. Some, if not most, of us were even amazed by words and, at times, confounded by them. We struggled with the idea that there were rules, yet exceptions to those rules, for how words operate in our language. And, no doubt, we also came to understand that there were words we used--some of our very first words, words handed down to us from the most trusted sources, our friends and families--that weren''t recognized as "real" words in our schoolbooks.

Those words, most often those of our grandparents and neighbors and immediate community, make up something we call "vernacular." In the United States, we have distinct vernacular regions that possess varying and colorful words for everything under the sun--from toilets to soft drinks. For its part, there might not be a more colorful vernacular than that of the Southern Appalachians. As is the case with many rich, verbal cultures, Southern Appalachia is chock-full of wonderful words--some widely recognized, some not so much--used in everyday speech. Caricatured in the media, the Southern Appalachian vernacular is often ignorantly characterized as "backward." In context, these words are poetic and full of wit. What''s more, they are necessary to fully experience the region''s oral tradition. Here, we provide a glossary of terms collected by Foxfire students in the early days of The Foxfire Magazine.

Let this serve as a reference as you make your way through the stories, tales, jokes, and songs herein. all-overs: chills or nervousness ambure (amber): snuff or tobacco juice bad: to indicate excessive interest in something, as in "He was awful bad to get into the whiskey." battlin'' stick (also, "punchin'' stick"): used to beat dirt out of clothes before washing them in an iron pot biddy (also, "doody" or "diddle"): young chicken big eye: unable to sleep, insomnia blue-john: milk without cream branch: small stream britches: harness for a mule broadcast: scatter over, as in broadcasting manure over a garden can-house: smokehouse or storage area for meats and canned goods catty-whompus: something lopsided; hanging or sitting crooked cellar: a room at ground level (not necessarily under the house) used for storage of canned foods, potatoes, etc. cent: bit, as in "don''t care a cent for," meaning, "I don''t mind it a bit" chinquapin: money; change, as in dimes, quarters, etc. choke-rag: necktie chunk: small; as in, "I was just a chunk of a boy" clodhoppers: boots or heavy shoes commodities (also, "mullicans"): foods given to individuals by the government confidence (verb): to trust; as in, "Can I confidence you?" cornfield beans: beans that grow up cornstalks counterpin (also, "counterpane"): bedspread country Cadillac: pickup truck crawdad: crayfish crossways [of each other]: to be in disagreement; to disagree discomfit: to inconvenience someone; to put someone out in any way dodger (also, "turn of bread"): a cooked pan of cornbread dog-irons (also, "fire dogs"): the two irons used to support wood in the fireplace donie: a young girl; a young woman doublebait [that]: request to have something repeated dough-sop: bread soaked in gravy fireboard: the mantel above the fireplace fist-and-skull [fight]: bad fight fleshy: fat flint rock: quartz fogeyism: something considered nonsense or superstitious galouses: suspenders gee-whiz: a type of plow git-fiddle: term for guitar in the context of old-time string music glib: active; young acting, as in "She''s pretty glib to be as old as she is" go-devil: a maul; a wood-splitting tool gooseneck: a garden hoe grabble: to harvest young potatoes haints: ghosts or spirits hard: bad, as in "I''m awful hard to remember names" haul-off: to act; make an action, as in "I''m going to haul-off and take these books to the library." heart dropsy: down at heart; to not have the will or spirit to forward an action hearthrock: a large rock at floor level that extends out in front of the fireplace, acting as a hearth hissy: a fit; acting very upset, as in "She had a hissy because I dropped the bread" holp: past tense of "help" jack beans: lima beans kindlin'': small pieces of dry wood used to start a fire larrupin'': to taste very good latchpin: safety pin loaded for bear: to mean business; overloaded, or loaded to the top lobberin'': to go wandering long sweetenin'': honey mean''ness: as in, "lowdown meanness"; getting into trouble or mischief meetin'': a church service, as in "goin'' to meetin'' " mink-mink: rabbit nary: not any, none, and the like, as in "I didn''t see nary a one." no rate: spread around, as in "Don''t no rate it!" no such a (also, "no such of a"): as in "I never seen no such a thing in my life." noted fact: a proven fact; disreputable fact painter: panther pianner (also, "pie-anna"): piano piazza (also, "pie-azzer"): a front porch poke: a brown paper sack pokin'' stick: a fire poker; a stick used to stir coals in a fire pole axe: hatchet poppin'' [one''s teeth]: to be angry poppycock: an "unnecessary" gathering, as in a dance party or similar social event quietus: to make someone back down or give up an argument rheumatism medicine: moonshine ride a broom: to sweep a floor roastin'' ears: ears of unshucked corn rudimentals: a portmanteau of "rudiments" and "fundamentals" sallet: turnip greens sawmill gravy: gravy made with cornmeal instead of flour short sweetenin'': sorghum slick foot: to not be able to sleep at night smooth your feathers: a command, meaning "comb your hair" snake feeder: a dragon fly soak-toddie: biscuits soaked in coffee, eaten for breakfast spittin'' fire: to be angry; to express anger splatterment: a mess or a fight, as in "You''ve never seen such a splatterment in all your life.

" switchell: a drink made from vinegar and honey thumpin'' gizzard: one who appears heartless; someone who does evil things tote: to carry undoes: to upset someone up your trotter: to fall or slip to the ground vittles (also, rations): food wag: to carry something wasper: a wasp or hornet weathercock: a weathervane whatnots: three-cornered shelves whenever: when, as in "He was there whenever I went." whet-rock: whetstone; a stone used to sharpen knives white tops: daisies witches foot: a peace sign yankee dime: a kiss young sprouts (also, "tads"): young boys Chapter Two Proverbs & Sayin''s If you''ll allow it, we''d like to carry over the grade-school analogy from the previous chapter. In grade school we learn words and their functions and how they come together to form ideas, or sentences. In oral traditions, a culture''s vernacular comes together in the same way to give us some of the most fundamental pieces of the verbal art puzzle. Colloquial expressions, or "sayings," are a great example of the colorful way in which a folk group negotiates the world. Through these sayings, we can learn a great deal about cultural communities--everything from how they may relate to the natural world ("hollow as a gourd") to the occupations that make up their economies ("Sharp as a pegging awl"). These expressions are very much rooted in place and connected to all the ways in which people pass their time on the earth. The next step up from the colloquial expression is the proverb.

You will undoubtedly recognize some of these even if you''re not from Southern Appalachia. Many of the proverbs that pop up in our regional ethnographic collection have their roots in the Old World and show up wherever immigrants to the New World landed and put down roots. Proverbs have an uncanny way of simplifying the world in commonsense terms (no doubt why they are so often used by our grandparents when we are small). Like any verbal art form of any merit, proverbs are full of great wit and often appear as a clever turn of phrase. Expressions One of Foxfire''s aims since its founding has been to record patterns of speech that are distinctive in the mountain regions. The following is a portion of the material that we have gathered in the last year from the northern portion of Rabun County a.