Have You Heard These Old Appalachian Words and Sayings? | Mountain Dialect

[00:00:00]Have y'all ever heard anyone call a dragonfly anything other than just a dragonfly? In today's video, I want to talk about that and just a couple other words and phrases and a couple other things I heard while I was growing up here in the Appalachin Mountains. As I'm going over these different words and phrases, let me know down in the comments if you all heard them or maybe even said them to wherever you grew up.

[00:00:24]for this first one. Um, since I started doing these videos about words and phrases, I have learned that there are a lot of different ways that someone might call a dragonfly. And really, it just depends on wherever you grew up. One way that I have heard a lot of folks call dragonfly is a snake doctor. That's right. Some people call those snake doctors. I think maybe that's because some folks say that you can tell if a snake is nearby. If you see a lot of dragon flies. Um, I'm not for sure about that. If someone knows down in the comments, go ahead and let me know. Now, speaking of uh how to tell if a snake is nearby, I also covered this one in the video a while back, too. But I know growing up here, I've also heard that if you smell cucumbers outside, that was a way to find out if there was a snake that was close by. and specifically a copperhead snake here in southeastern Kentucky. So, y'all also have to let me know down in the comments if you've heard that one too about how you can find out if there's a snake nearby. The next one I want to talk about is something that was really popular whenever I did this over on my Facebook page and over on my TikTok. I had a lot of people chime in and tell me um what they said for this. And for this one, the question is, what do you call your grandparents?

[00:01:46]um your grandfather and your grandmother. Now, of course, on this one, um there are going to be a lot of different answers. Um there's a lot of different and unique ways and unique names for grandmas and grandpas. Um but here in southeastern Kentucky for grandpas, one of the probably most common ways I've heard um people call their grandfather would be papa. And that's exactly what I called mine, too.

[00:02:13]Um I called mine papa. And just a quick fun fact, I'm actually a grandfather now. Uh my little granddaughter is going to be two years old in August. Time flies. And I've been trying to get her to call me Poppy. Um because that's what uh my mom called her grandfather. She called him Poppy. But whenever she says my name, it sounds like Papa. So I might become a Papa. So go ahead and let me know down in the comments. What did you call your grandfather? Let's not forget about grandmothers. Um, what did you all call your grandmothers? I grew up in the little county of Klay County here in southeastern Kentucky. And I noticed here uh when I was growing up, a lot of folks would call their grandmother one of two things, but now I know there's lots of other ways and nicknames for grandmother, too. But these just kind of stood out as being really common. The first one is Memo. When I was really little, um I can remember that my mom's grandmother uh actually lived with us and stayed with us um until she passed away. And I called her Mama. I can remember this one awesome story about Mammal is that um she wanted me to have as much ice cream as I wanted. And um she made my mom and dad go out and get a big deep freeze, you know, a stand up freezer. And uh she did that just so I'd have a place to store my ice cream. My mama loved me and I loved her a lot, too. And I sure do miss her. Some people might say she rented me a little bit.

[00:03:52]She spoiled me a little bit. Made sure I got all the ice cream I wanted. The other common nickname that I heard around here a lot was Granny. So, go ahead and let me know down in the comments. What did you all call your grandmother? And this might be a good time also just to let me know where you all are watching from. I love going back, reading through your comments, and finding out where everyone is uh watching these videos from. I've only got one more word that I want to cover in today's video. But before we move on to that one, I got a couple things I just want to say really quickly. First thing is I want to take a second to thank my front porch crew members. Thank you all so much for supporting me. I really appreciate it. If you want to find out how you can join them, the link is down in the description below. The second thing I want to say is for everyone who is following me over on Facebook, I just want to say thank you all so much. Um, this week I actually just passed 200,000 followers over there. That is wild and amazing to me. It just makes me so happy to know that there are so many people interested in these older words and phrases that I heard while I was growing up here. So, I just want to take a second to thank you all. For the last word that I want to cover today, have y'all ever heard anyone call a relative, you know, someone who is related to you?

[00:05:14]You know, like your cousin, your dad, your uncle, you know, your relative.

[00:05:19]Have you ever heard anyone call those anything other than just relatives? This is another one that's probably has a couple different ways you can call relatives here where I grew up. Um, there's one that really stands out. A lot of people around here would call their relatives kinfolk. That's right.

[00:05:38]They would call them kinfolk. But I actually have a second way that I've heard some people, especially when they're asking you who your kin folk are, they have a different way of saying that, too. So, let's say you just met someone and they were asking you um who you might be related to. They around here, they might say something like, "Who are your people?" And I've also heard like if they're asking where your family is from, they would say, "Now, where are your people from?" I don't know why, but for for some reason, um this Leslie County, Kentucky, uh little place, it's called Thousand Sticks. And whenever I said that, I thought of it for some reason because if you had family who lived in Thousand Sticks, you might hear a question like this. Now, are your people from up on Thousand Sticks? There's lots of little communities around this area that have really unique sounding names like that one. I know there's a place called um Possum Trot. There's, you know, Thousand Sticks. There's a bunch of others um just in this little area and over in Next County, which is in Leslie County.

[00:06:44]Um, that might make for just a good video by itself. Okay, go ahead and let me know down in the comments if y'all ever heard anyone call their relatives their kinfolk or their people like a lot of folks do here in southeastern Kentucky. Well, I think that's about all I've got today. Um, I really hope you enjoyed this video. I love talking about these words and phrases and different names or common things that I heard while I was growing up here. And then I love finding out what other places have similar uh dialect. Maybe you heard some of the same things I heard. Um and you live out in Utah or uh Oklahoma or down in Arkansas or wherever. I love finding that stuff out, too. So, make sure you let me know down in the comments where you're watching from. If you like these types of videos, you might want to consider subscribing. Um, I also love doing videos where I just take you out in our area and show you some of uh um the things here in southeastern Kentucky. I love trying to promote small businesses. Um, I love showing like what just life is like here in southeastern Kentucky. Um, I know I recently did a video where I just did a little drive through my hometown of Manchester, Kentucky. Y'all might want to go check that one out. And I actually just did a video where I talked about a couple more words and phrases I heard. And while I was covering those words, I actually made myself some refrigerator pickles.

[00:08:06]So, you might be interested in that one, too. All right. Thanks so much for watching. I really appreciate it. Until next time.