Old Appalachian Dialect | Words From the Appalachian Mountains

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I love talking about the old Appalachian dialect that I heard from my mom and my dad, my friends and my family while I was growing up here in southeastern Kentucky. Let me know down in the comments if you all heard any of these that I'm about to go over. And when you're commenting, don't forget to let me know where you're from. Have you ever heard anyone call a kitchen sink something other than just a sink? Well, my mom, when I was growing up here in the Appalachian Mountains, she had a different word for sink. I'll give you just a second to guess what it is down below.

[00:00:35]Okay, are you ready?

[00:00:36]She always would call it a zinc with a Z. If we go over to visit her and she fixed the supper or something like that, after we're finished, she'll say, "Ah, put those dishes in the zinc." That one might have something to do with sinks being made of zinc a long time ago and it's just one of those carryovers. I'm not for sure, but if you all know, let me know down below. The next one is what people call milk that has went bad. Now, I've talked about this one before, but what I found out is there are several variations based on where you grew up on what you call bad milk. Here in eastern Kentucky, my dad, he would say that milk is rent. That's right, rent, not ruined.

[00:01:25]He said rent. Now, I know a lot of other folks had other words and other names for bad milk. Like there's different levels and different stages of it going bad.

[00:01:37]Um I know some people would say that it's blinked or it's went blinky. Some people might say it's went clabbered.

[00:01:46]Some people may say it's spoiled or I've even heard some folks call it spoilt, like s p o l t. So, let me know down in the comments which way do you normally call milk that went just went bad? Okay, on the next one, what do you call it or how do you describe something that is not quite aligned? Imagine a picture frame that's hanging on the wall and it's just tilted slightly and you want it to be straight up and down. If it's tilted up, you know, a little sideways, what word do you use to describe that?

[00:02:20]Here's another one that I have learned there are several variations um and different ways you can describe something not being really straight and it all depends on where you grew up at.

[00:02:33]A lot of folks who look at that and say, "That picture frame is But then someone else who maybe grew up a couple miles down the road, they may look at that picture frame and say, "It's caddy wompus." Or you could be like my dad and you will look at that picture frame and say, "It's a little off-kilter." And then some other folks might look at it and say, "That picture frame is wapper-jawed."

[00:02:57]That's right, wapper-jawed. That one's probably the most fun to say. Well, maybe it or side-oggling. Wapper-jawed.

[00:03:05]Side-oggling.

[00:03:07]Either way, let me know when something is not quite straight, which of those ways do you use to describe that? Okay, the next one I'm going to talk about is a way to describe when there's you don't have something or you don't have any left. This one's a little hard to explain, so let me go ahead and give you an example of what I'm talking about.

[00:03:28]Imagine that you're going to bake a cake and this recipe calls for four eggs. I don't know, I just made that up. And you look in the fridge, you're all out of eggs. So, what do you do? Maybe you call your mom and you want to say, "Hey, Mom, I'm out of eggs. I'm trying to make this cake. Do you have any eggs I can borrow?" She might say, "I don't have nary a one." To me, that's just a fancy way of saying I don't have any. We just add a little bit of flair to it sometimes by saying nary. Don't have nary a one.

[00:04:01]Let me know if you've heard someone say that one before, and maybe you're like my mom who still says that sometimes.

[00:04:07]Okay, on this next one I've actually covered in a video, but it's been a while.

[00:04:11]Um and it's something my dad said. When he meant to say corn on the cob, he said it a little differently. I learned that there's some slight variation to this word based on where you grew up. My dad always called it, get ready for it, he called it a roastioneer.

[00:04:29]That's right, roastioneer.

[00:04:32]It's almost it sounds like it's almost got a c h or a s h in the middle somewhere. Roastioneer. In reality, what what dad was saying was roasting ear, but he kind of mushed the word together, and when he said it, and when a lot of folks that I grew up around said it, it came out sounding like roastioneer.

[00:04:54]Now, when I did this on a video a few months ago, I learned that there are slight differences like I said before.

[00:05:00]Some people would say roastioneer, and and they wouldn't add that c h or s h sound. And then other folks just said, no, they just called it roasting ear. Um but I mean, that's not as fun as roastioneer, is it? Okay, here's the last one. What do you call when you bump your head and there's like a raised spot on your head? What do y'all call that?

[00:05:23]My dad would always call that a pump knot.

[00:05:28]Anytime maybe you banged your head and you get that bruise and raised area, he always called it a pump knot. Now, when I did that video a while back, a lot of you told me that you called it a goose egg. I'd actually not heard that before until you all said it. Um makes sense, but I always heard pump knot, not goose egg. So, which way did you hear it growing up? Pump knot, goose egg, or did you say it a different way? I hope you all really enjoyed this video. Let me know how many of those words were you familiar with. Let me know down below, and like I said before, don't forget to let me know where you're from. I love reading your comments, and I love finding out where everyone is watching these videos from. And if you enjoyed this video, you might enjoy this one that I recently uploaded where I talked about some old sayings I heard from my dad while I was growing up here in the Appalachian Mountains. All right, thanks so much for watching this one. Until next time.