Alicia from Wilmington, North Carolina, says she grew using the word allow to mean “say” or “declare.” Sometimes rendered simply as ’low, this expression has been used since at least the 18th century. Another form meaning “to admit” is allow as how. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “”Allow,” Meaning “Say” or “Declare””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Alicia.
Hey, Alicia, where are you calling us from?
I’m calling you from Wilmington, North Carolina.
Oh, welcome.
What can we do for you?
What’s going on there on the coast?
Thank you.
So my father was raised in King, North Carolina, and whenever we would go visit his family in that area, for example, he might walk across the street and visit his cousin. And when he comes back to the house, my mom would say, “Hey, what did Dean have to allow?” And he would tell her what he had to allow.
And when I mentioned that one time to my husband, or asked him that maybe when he had gone to talk to somebody or whatever, he’s like, “What? What is allow? What do you mean?” And I can’t find anybody that’s ever heard of that phrase before, but I swear I grew up with it. It makes perfect sense to me. And I just wondered, so I called y’all.
We believe you, Alicia.
Thank you.
We do.
I would say that somebody who hasn’t heard this just hasn’t read a lot of American literature.
Okay, good.
And that’s not necessarily an insult so much as it’s a thing that you should improve if you haven’t done it. Because it is a term that you will find in the writings of Mark Twain and Bret Hart. And I can’t even, hundreds of authors, I’m sure, from the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s have used a form of allow, which basically means something like to say, to declare, to declaim, to claim, to state.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
So you, and sometimes it’s given as lao, like I’ll lao, L-O-W, but it’s just an abbreviated form of a lao.
Gotcha. Okay.
Yeah. So it’s, this goes back to the 1700s, 300 something years or so of this word. And there’s some different uses of it that I won’t get into here, some different substances, but generally it’s about saying a thing. Sometimes it’s saying it with force. Sometimes it’s saying it, meaning to admit, like someone says, “Were you on the bank on the evening of the 4th?” And you’ll be like, “Well, I’ll allow that I was there, but I was not doing anything harmful,” right? You allow, you admit.
But in general, it can be used to say. He allowed. He allowed that the dinner was good, and he’d be back next Sunday. And I hear it more as allowed as how.
Oh, nice.
Aunt Mazo there in North Carolina would say, “Oh, he allowed as how he was 23 years old or something like that.”
Yeah.
How is it spelled?
Just like the other word, A-L-L-O-W.
L-O-W, okay.
Conjugated the same, yeah.
I feel so vindicated.
Oh, absolutely.
Our pleasure.
It is primarily Southern at this point. You will sometimes hear it in what’s called the Midlands or Southern Midlands. These are the states or the parts of the country right above the American South. But you will find it here and there in places like the Northeast and Vermont and the rural speech of people in the mountains of Montana. It’ll pop up now and again.
That’s wonderful.
Good.
Well, I’m going to keep using it, and I can’t wait for my husband to hear this. And my kids are going to be thrilled because they’re avid readers and love some of those authors that you mentioned. So, yeah, this is great.
Oh, that’s where I first heard it. Nobody in my family used it, even though I had some Southern folks that might. But I learned it from Mark Twain. That’s where I first heard it.
Well, thank you so much.
Our pleasure, Alicia.
Thanks for calling.
Take care.
All right.
You too.
Thank you.
All right.
Bye-bye.
