Calf-Rope!

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Barb and I’m from Indiana.

Hi, Barb, where in Indiana are you?

Evansville, Indiana.

Oh, whoa, we’re on the air there, wonderful.

Well, what’s up?

Well, I have a crazy family word that I would love to know a little more about. It goes all the way back to my grandparents who are not living anymore, and it goes all the way down through my generation and my children use it. But I’ve never heard any other family use the word before, so I thought it would be fun to throw at you guys.

Okay.

If you’re wrestling around with someone or horsing around with someone and you want to be released from that situation, you yell calf rope, C-A-L-F-R-O-P-E. My husband teases me about it. He’s never heard of it. And all the people I’ve told the story to never have heard of the word before. So I was just curious to know where it came from and how it got started and why our crazy family uses it this way.

So the kids are goofing around. One of them’s got the other one pinned, or the one on the ground, in order to get out of it. Instead of saying, uncle, like the rest of the country, they’re going to shout, calf rope, calf rope!

Correct. You got it.

And one more question, Barb. Is your husband from the same area?

He is, I say he’s a Midwestern fella, but he’s actually lived in Indiana, excuse me, Illinois and Missouri and Iowa growing up with his family. So I claim him as a Midwest boy, but he’s really not from this part of the country, no.

But your grandparents, are they from that part of the country?

They are. They are from southern Illinois, and then after they were married, we’re in southern Indiana.

How about that?

Okay.

Well, that makes a lot of sense because that expression is spread around that area, smack dab in the middle of the country.

Okay.

And in Texas, Oklahoma, right in that area.

How about that?

So there’s more than just Barb’s family. Barb’s crazy family, I think, was how you put it. So your family may be crazy, but it’s not because of this particular expression.

So we’ve got a couple dictionaries that have entries for this if you want to find out a little bit more. The Dictionary of American Regional English, which we always talk about. And even if you just go to Google Books and look up holler calf rope, you’re going to find a ton of places going back more than 100 years where it’s used in fiction and nonfiction.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the image, of course, is of roping a calf, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So you didn’t calf rope us. We had an answer for you.

I knew you would. I knew you were way too smart.

Cool.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Barb.

Hey, Barb. Thanks for calling. Have a great day.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I know there are a lot of crazy families out there that have a lot of crazy language because you call us and you tell us so, and we do so love to hear from you. 877-929-9673. And we really enjoy the stories that you send us an email to words@waywordradio.org. Tell us about your family’s crazy talk.