All Stove Up After a Day of Hard Work

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ash from Huntsville.

Hi, Ash. Welcome to the show.

After a long day’s work, and I’ll go to sit down in the chair, and my muscles will get stiff.

And when you go to move again, you’re just sore all over, like a whole body sore.

And I’ve always heard that referred to as all stove up.

I never could figure out what that was.

I even asked my mom one time, and she didn’t know, but she was like, yeah, it’s like a baseball player that’s running for the outfield fly, and he runs full steam into the wall.

It’s like the next day, he’s going to be all stove up.

I was wondering if y’all could shed some light on that with me.

All stove up.

That’s S-T-O-V-E, stove.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so if you come home at the end of a long day and you’re all stove up, you’re not feeling too good, right?

Right, right.

You’re not incapacitated, but you sure ain’t happy about it.

Right.

Stove up is related to the expression to stave in.

The expression to stave in means to smash a hole into something.

And it comes from the noun stave.

You know how when you create a barrel, you have these staves of wood, you know, these strips of wood that are placed next to each other.

And then they’re secured with a metal band.

Yeah, it has to do with staves.

And to stave in a wooden boat is to smash a hole in its side.

Or you might remember that during Prohibition, Cary Nation was known for running around the country with an axe and staving in barrels of whiskey.

And to be stove up is a past form that’s the result of staving.

So if something’s stove up, it’s smashed or it’s damaged or it’s crushed.

You might say, you know, if you jam your finger, you might say, my finger is all stove up.

Just been hit really hard, which sounds like how you feel at the end of a long, hard day.

Right, right.

Yeah, that’s very interesting.

I’ve always wondered that.

Well, I’m hoping that you don’t feel all stove up very often.

Hopefully not.

I was like, the older you get, the more often it happens.

Yeah.

And sometimes a night’s sleep doesn’t help.

Yeah.

It actually makes it worse.

Well, I sure do appreciate the inside, y’all.

Thank you, Ash.

We appreciate it.

You be safe out there, all right?

Okay.

Have a great day.

Take care of yourself.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’re not stove up, we hope you’re all in for giving us a call at 877-929-9673.

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