Ackempucky

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

My name is Addie Mahoney. I’m from Nino, Wisconsin.

Welcome to the show, Addie.

Hi, Addie. What’s up?

Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to be on. I love listening.

I was calling in about one of my grandfather’s words that he used quite often was ikampaki.

Icky, I believe, if I could spell it, it would be I-C-K-I-M-P-A-C-K-Y.

Okay.

And so he would use this word for things that would be stuck in things.

Typically, if you had something stuck in your teeth, and he would say, you know,

But you, Ickampaki, you can point it out on other family members.

Or if you had something on your shirt, or if something was stuck in something that you’re trying to clean out.

And that would be Ickampaki, kind of an unknown substance that you kind of flick off or get off.

Ickampaki.

Wow.

Okay.

I’ve never heard that.

I’ve never heard that either.

Let me ask you, though, was he of Scandinavian descent?

No, he’s not.

No Norwegians anywhere in the family?

Not that I know of.

I know you said your last name was Mahoney.

No, he was Scottish, Irish.

Too bad because my theory was Ica is not or no in Norwegian,

And I was just thinking it was not something or not packed or something, not clumping.

Never mind then.

I did come across one thing about the word, and it was kind of odd to me because I had just started working as a sales manager for plumbing in the last year.

And as I was trying to find this word and find something, I came across a word, I think you would pronounce it akum pucky.

And it is a plumbing term used for the gunk caught in the threads when you’re taking pipes apart and whatnot.

Oh, really? That’s amazing. You did astonishing work there. How do you spell that?

I think it was spelled A-C-K-U-M-P-U-C-K-Y.

And so I found that quite interesting.

And it matches up with his Akampaki.

You know what?

That’s it.

It’s in the Dictionary of American Regional English as Akampaki.

It says any of various usually sticky liquid or pasty substances also defined as gunk, dating back to 1934.

Whoa, and you’re hired.

You got a job.

You are.

And you know what’s funny?

The Dictionary of American Regional English is based right there in Wisconsin.

They would be delighted to know that they helped a Wisconsinite.

Oh, that’s really interesting.

Yeah, it’s got citations, though, all over the country, including Texas, West Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Alabama, Washington, Kansas.

So it’s not regional, but it’s got a long history, Akampaki, and lots of different spellings.

None of them quite like you pronounced it.

Yeah, this is fantastic.

Yes, I wasn’t sure exactly how it was pronounced, but it ran across that little bit of a word.

And you know what’s funny is they just added this entry in 2017.

So it’s a new entry to the dictionary.

So, Addie, we’re going to hire you as the director of Ikempaki for A Way with Words

Because this is so cool to be doing this in real time.

You are an Ikempaki lieutenant.

How about that?

Heck, just make you the president of Akampaki.

All right.

All right.

I would be able to keep you very, very busy with all of my grandfather’s work.

Oh, really?

Well, then we expect regular phone calls.

Report in, miss.

All right.

Many of them are completely made up, but they’re fine.

That’s fine.

Those are fun, too.

But not this one.

Not this one.

How exciting.

Thank you so much for sharing your memory with us and that amazing new word, Akampaki.

Because it sounds like what it is, right?

It does sound like gunk.

It really does.

Oh, that’s good.

Well, Addie, that is going into our vocabulary right now.

Thank you so much for calling.

Wonderful. And you take care of yourself, all right?

Well, thank you. And you gave me some great information on that, and I’ll look at it further.

So thank you for having me on. I enjoyed myself very much.

All right. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Addie.

You too. Yeah. Bye-bye.

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