A woman from upstate New York says her stepfather used to keep small dishes in various rooms to collect small odds and ends like paper clips and rubber bands. He called them culch piles. Martha has the story on this term. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Culch Piles”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Lynn Arthur from Indianapolis.
Hi, Lynn. Welcome to the program.
Hi, Lynn.
Hi.
What can we do for you?
Well, something came up several years ago, in fact, with my stepfather. He used to keep a little dish on a small side table next to wherever he decided, his own chair in whatever room. And the dishes contained a collection of small items like packs or paper clips, that kind of thing. I believe the dishes just were there to serve as a repository for things he wanted someplace to put. He referred to it as a culch pile.
A culch pile.
Yes. And I’ve just spelled it C-U-L-C-H pile. And I can’t ask him anymore. He’s not with us anymore. But the darn thing keeps sticking in my mind of, well, why was it a colch pile? And he was in upstate New York in the Mohawk Valley and had lived there all his life, just in case it might be a regional thing. So I was just curious if you might have any ideas.
Well, Lynn, was his family from upstate New York as well?
Yes.
Okay, okay. So he had these little dishes in every room of the house? Or his favorite rooms?
Pretty much, yeah, in all but the kitchen, I think. What else was in there then? It was more than thumbtacks and paperclips, right?
Yeah, just… coins and dice and colorful stamps and playing cards and old matches.
No, no.
No?
Not that I can recall.
Oh, okay. No, it was all these little useful things. He was a master carpenter.
I see. So that kind of thing, you know. Screws and nail clippers and measuring tapes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, what do we know about this, Martha? Does the Mohawk Valley give you a clue?
Well, it helps. It’s mainly in New England. It is a regional expression. And it goes back to an old word for a layer of debris that forms an oyster bed. When they’re real little, the oysters tend to light on something like a rock or a broken shell, and people would put that kind of stuff out, and that would be called the culche.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, it may be related to a French word for couch.
Right, but couche, which means layer.
Right, right, right. So it goes back to the oyster beds, which, of course, makes sense that people in New England would pick up on that.
Oh, absolutely. So it went from the idea of all that little broken stuff in an oyster bed to just a collection of odds and ends.
Odds and ends. How interesting. And so this is widespread. Does this exist outside of New England as far as you know, Martha?
I believe it started out in Britain.
Yes.
Okay, here we go. Yeah, I see that it’s in Francis Gros’s slang dictionary from the 1700s.
Oh, no kidding.
Yeah, famous. It wasn’t a naughty word, though, was it?
No, no, but it was an odd bit of linguistic riffraff there.
Riffraff?
A little goo-gah that he picked up, you know. And put in his colch pile.
That’s right. Francis Gross did make slang works that were very much like colch piles, whatever he could gather, yes.
Which, I didn’t catch what dictionary it was in.
Well, you can find this in a wide variety of dictionaries because it’s pretty well established. The American Heritage Fourth Edition Dictionary, which is a great dictionary, by the way, does have an entry for it. There’s four spellings, C-U-L-C-H, C-U-L-T-C-H, and then the same two words with an S on the beginning. So S-C-U-L-T-C-H and S-C-U-L-C-H.
-huh, -huh. And their definition, which is really interesting, says clean trash or rubbish such as string, paper, and cloth.
So that would make sense.
Yeah, it certainly would.
Yeah. Certainly would. Well, Lynn, I hope that helps.
It has immensely. It’s answered a question that keeps coming up into my brain. Thank you. I’ll be able to let that one go now.
Okay.
Oh, no. Hang on to it. It’s precious.
No, no, no. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that.
Oh, you’re let go of the worry and hang on to the word.
Yeah.
Okay. Well said. That could be a new bumper sticker.
Okay. Lynn, thank you for calling us today. Take care.
Well, thank you for helping. Good to talk to you.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye. What’s the word that you’ve wondered about for a very long time? We’d like to help you get to the bottom of it, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org. Or tell us what you call your culture pile.
