Around the Gool

A woman in Monkton, Vermont, says that when she and her 91-year-old mother return from a leisurely drive, her mother will proclaim, “That was a nice ride around the gool.” The phrase going around the gool appears in the Dictionary of American Regional English in a 1990 citation from Vermont. It appears to come from an older Scots word that could mean “a hollow between hills” or some sort of “anatomical cleft.” This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Boodle on Beaver Island

A resident of Michigan’s scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies...

Recent posts