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.
Transcript of “Around the Gool”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Amy from Moncton, Vermont.
Hi, Amy. Welcome.
Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?
My mom, who is 91 years old, she was born, raised, and lived her whole life in Vermont, has been using a phrase in the last few years that I’ve been unable to find reference to.
So we’ll pick her up, take her for a ride, we’ll leave the house, maybe go around town or a couple towns, and return in a different direction and pull into the yard.
And she’ll say, oh, that was a nice ride around the ghoul. And so I’ve been trying to figure out what that might be.
I never heard it before and didn’t know if maybe you could give a little insight into that question.
A ride around the ghoul and no idea how she’s spelling that in her mind.
No, and she’d just say, what’d you say? And she’ll repeat it, and it’s just in the last couple years.
And I checked with local townspeople to see if they’ve heard it, and I’m just not really sure where it came from.
Well, interesting that she’s in Vermont.
Yes, it is.
In one of our favorite reference works of all time, The Dictionary of American Regional English, which you can find at daredictionary.com, they have an entry on Google, G-O-O-L, and the very last citation for it, the most recent one is somebody from Vermont in 1990 using the phrase going around the ghoul.
And pretty much the same way that your mother uses it.
Oh, no kidding.
And they suggest that it comes from old Scots words.
And you can follow a trail of dictionaries, including the Scottish National Dictionary, The Dictionary of the Scots Language Online, the Oxford English Dictionary.
But the short version of it is that a lot of these words have to do with a pass or a ravine or a hollow between hills or a defile between mountains, a gap or a hole.
And if you take it even further back, it can have to do with older words referring to the crotch of a human being or the gluteal cleft, which each of us has at the top of our backside.
Back there.
Yes.
So it just really refers to a pass between mountains or hills.
And so when you talk about riding around the ghoul, you’re just basically talking about riding around the mountains or riding around the hills.
That makes sense.
Well, she lives on the hollow road.
Oh, there we go.
Maybe she heard it somewhere.
That’s interesting.
I wonder where she found it.
Well, the thing about it is, I suspect because we have this one other person, unless it was her from 1990, we have the little tiny bit of evidence that is a thing that is now set in Vermont, which reflects the settlement history of people coming from particular regions of the United Kingdom.
That is so awesome.
It is, right?
Yeah, how cool is that?
So gul in a variety of different spellings has about 300 or 400 years history at least.
Possibly, maybe even connects to the French word for mouth, gul, G-E-U-L-E.
Like gullet.
How about that?
That is awesome.
Because I was beginning to wonder, you know, did she make that up?
No, no, it’s legit.
It’s a real thing.
It’s legit.
It’s a real linguistic heirloom you got there.
Well, good for her.
I’ll have to let her know.
Drop us a line if she’s got any more of these gems, all right?
Okay, I will.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate the time.
I really appreciate it.
Tell her hi from us.
I will.
Okay.
All right.
Bye-bye.
All right.
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