Chat, Chert

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey.

Hey, who’s this?

My name’s Helen.

I’m calling from Indianapolis.

Hey, Helen.

Welcome to the show.

Hey, Helen.

Thanks.

What is up?

Hi.

I grew up in southeast Kansas.

Okay.

And I just, this came to mind a few weeks ago because I was talking to my sister about it.

So when we grew up, we lived on a gravel road, but we always called it chat.

And I just assumed everybody, that was just like another general term for gravel.

And it wasn’t until I said it in college and people looked at me like I had two heads and I realized that was something unique to where I was from.

So I just wonder about about this word.

Are we the only place that used it to mean gravel or were there other places?

I think it’s like a mining term.

And there were a lot of mines from that part of Kansas, you know, Galena mines and coal mines.

And so, I mean, that’s my question.

Where does this term come from?

Why do we use it to mean gravel, and are we the only ones who use it to mean gravel?

So chat, C-H-A-T?

I guess.

You know, it’s not something I don’t think I ever have seen it spelled.

It’s just something that we said.

Okay, so the stuff on the road, the gravelly stuff you called chat.

Yeah, gravel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And did you call it a chat road then?

Yeah, we lived on a chat road.

Okay.

Interesting.

Did it look like regular gravel, or was there something special about it?

Did it look like mine refuse or anything like that?

Well, see, this is another—I wonder, you know, did we just, like, buy the refuse from the mine to cover our roads?

I don’t think so.

It just looked like regular rocks to me, but I don’t know.

Kind of uniform in size and color would probably mean it was, like, just regular old gravel, right?

I think so.

It just looked like little bitty rocks.

And, you know, every so often the road grader would come and dump a bunch of it and then, you know, kind of grade it off to the side of the road.

Okay.

And you said this was in southeastern Kansas, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

You know what?

It’s regional enough that the Dictionary of American Regional English has a whole entry on the word chat.

Yes.

And it’s pretty much localized right smack dab in the middle of the country, Missouri and Kansas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it’s, as you said, it’s the gravelly tailing from mines often used to surface roads.

It looks like it might come from an English dialect term that means a piece of stone that’s blended with lead ore or something like that.

Yeah, there are a variety of terms in English dialects you’ll find across a whole slew of 1800s dictionaries or glossaries that have something to do with gravel or rocks or stones or little pieces of organic matter on the ground are sometimes called chert.

Or chert.

Or chert, yeah.

C-H-E-R-T, chert.

Or chert.

Chert is a particular kind of stone, though.

Huh.

But there are a variety of spellings and pronunciations.

They’re all very similar with that C-H and that T.

That is so cool.

It’s like the only word I used growing up that seemed like nobody understood what it meant.

Hang on to those.

Those are precious, though, aren’t they?

The ones that belong to you and your experience.

Keep that as long as you can.

We don’t use it very often anymore.

Like I just kind of once I discovered that gravel is what everybody used, I stopped saying chat.

But that’s why it was so much fun when I was visiting my sister a couple of weeks ago and we started talking about that word and how, you know, we kind of feel unique in all the world because nobody else we know says it.

Huh.

Yeah.

Well, if you go to that part of the country, you’ll hear other people say it for sure.

That’s right.

Otherwise, yeah.

Otherwise, you do look like you have two heads, right?

People look at you that way.

Helen, before you go, can I ask you one more question?

Have you ever heard of chat potatoes?

Chat potatoes?

Yeah.

No.

Are those just tiny potatoes?

That’s right.

Small potatoes that kind of look like about the size of gravel, I guess.

Yeah, the washouts.

Oh, no.

But, you know, I’m going to ask around with family to see if that’s something that I just missed.

It’s possible.

It’s not that common anymore, but you will find it in old recipe books.

Oh, this is so cool.

Thank you.

Helen, it’s been a delight.

If you come across anything else from either your new location or your old, give us a call, all right?

Thanks so much.

Our pleasure.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

I’m doing my best to resist saying call us to chat.

Yeah, it didn’t work.

They’re etymologically unrelated, by the way.

Chat gravel and chat speaker unrelated.

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