Creasies

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mary Beth Wood.

Hi, Mary Beth. Where are you calling from?

Sandy Hook, Virginia.

Sandy Hook, Virginia. Where is that?

That is between Richmond and Charlottesville.

Okay. All right. So, what’s on your mind?

We have a country convenience store that we’ve had since 1982.

And when I first bought the store, the gentleman that we bought it from, and his wife, I’m sorry, his sister worked for us.

And she was helping train me, if you will.

And her name was Mary Bell.

And a gentleman came in and he asked me for a can of Creases.

And I asked him again what he said.

And he said, again, I need some Creases.

And I couldn’t figure out what on earth he was talking about.

And she was kind enough to whisper in my ear, he means cress salad.

And so I went over to the shelf and got a can of Crest Salad off.

And sure enough, when I looked at the label, underneath Crest Salad, on the label, it said Creases.

And I just wondered where on earth that originally came from.

Interesting. It said on the label?

On the label, in parentheses, it said Creases.

Okay, I have to ask, what kind of salad comes in a can?

Well, it was cress salad, watercress.

Okay.

Cress salad.

You can buy, you know, they call them salad greens in the south.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, turnip greens and collard greens and whatnot.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So it’s mixed with maybe a little bit of salt or vinegar or something?

Yeah, probably so.

But mostly canned in water.

Okay.

And then you season them.

Okay.

Crecies.

Creases, yeah. We’ve got a long history of mispronouncing the word cres in the United States.

Maybe not mispronouncing it, but at least having dialect variants as creases or creases or a variety of different things.

The Dictionary of American Regional English, our go-to source for this sort of thing, has a great entry on this.

They’ve taken it back as far as the 1930s.

And they suggest that it’s generally in the South Midlands, which means, let’s say, just south of the Ohio River Valley, but north of the true American South.

That’s the kind of region where you’re more likely to hear creases.

And it’s not just cresses.

Generally, it is a cress, like a water cress.

But sometimes it’s just generically used for any kind of greens that you might get off a plant, including collard greens or the tops of this and that, or maybe even poke for that matter.

So sometimes when people ask for creases, some questions are needed to know exactly what they mean.

But generally, we’re talking about stuff that’s served hot, right?

Not like a cold salad?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes, cooked.

Cooked, right.

It cooked with maybe a little bit of bacon fat in there and salt and pepper, might throw in some onions or what have you, right?

Oh, exactly.

Okay, good, good.

Yeah, but so it’s a good long history.

The Dictionary of American Regional English spells it C-R-E-E-C-E, C-R-E-E-C-E, but you’ll find it spelled like crease, it’s like a crease in your jeans and creasy, C-R-E-A-S-Y, and a variety of other spellings.

Yeah, so it has nothing to do with looking like creases or doodliers.

No, it’s just a dialect pronunciation of crest, as in watercress.

Now, that’s the crest that I know best.

My grandmother lived in southeast Missouri for a time near a place that had a natural spring, and we would go down there and collect the watercress, and that would be a part of our dinner.

It was fantastic.

So how’s that, Mary Beth?

Interesting. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Thanks for calling.

Take care, Maribeth.

I appreciate it.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I love those expressions.

They all remind me, everything that she talked about reminded me of my grandmother.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Your grandmother would use that.

The picking greens, going down for the watercress, just the country expressions, a particular way of talking.

There’s so much wrapped up in a single word, right?

So many connotations.

It’s like a smell or something.

Yep.

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