“Chimley” and “Chimbley” Pronunciations of “Chimney”

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Scott Flarsky speaking to you from Oak Bluff, Massachusetts.

Yeah, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Yeah, so I was listening to the show and I thought of something from my childhood.

My mother was from southeastern Kentucky, Appalachia, but I grew up in New England.

So, you know, their language and use of language was something that was always like fascinating for me.

And my mother’s family all used the word chimley, C-H-I-M-L-E-Y, to talk about the chimney.

And I don’t know, it just always stuck with me, and I wondered if it had any origins anywhere else.

Huh. So chimley for chimney.

Yes.

So you’re saying the folks in Appalachia said chimley, not the folks in Massachusetts.

Correct. My mother moved from there to Massachusetts in the Second World War.

So, she sort of lost that usage, but whenever I would visit all of my aunts and uncles and grandparents there, they would use this other word.

And I actually never asked them. It just sort of stuck with me.

That pronunciation, the C-H-I-M-L-E-Y, and another one, Chimbley, C-H-I-M-B-L-Y, are both really common in the United States, and they’re often looked down upon.

But from another perspective, they’re these artifacts of immigration because they tend to pop up where Americans have roots from the north of England and Scotland because that’s where those pronunciations come from.

They go back hundreds of years, heck, as far back as the 15th century in the British Isles.

So they are direct descendants of these people who migrated to the United States, and they’ve just kind of persisted in pockets ever since.

Wow. So that is related to sort of the Scotch-Irish origins of the people of Appalachia?

That is correct. That is absolutely right.

Now, there’s a little bit of the chimley and chimbley being said in places that don’t have Scott’s Irish heritage, but that’s just because the pronunciation then has spread a little bit.

But I have to say this plainly, if you say chimley and chimbley, it’s not because of a lack of education and it’s not because someone is stupid. It’s just because that is a part of the dialect.

Yeah, Scott, I like the word you used, authentic. It’s history in people’s mouths.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for calling, Scott.

Really appreciate it. Take care.

Love the show. Thank you.

Well, is there a word or phrase that your family uses that you’re surprised other people don’t use?

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