Someone who’s really hungry might say I’m falling to staves, meaning they’re famished. It’s a reference to the way a barrel falls apart if the metal hoops that hold them together are removed. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Falling to Staves”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Bruce from Dallas.
Hi, Bruce, welcome to the show.
Hi, Bruce, what’s going on?
My great-grandmother, I always used to say they were falling to staves, and I grew up with that all my life, and they said it meant they were starving to death.
But I never understood how they derived that meaning from that phrase, and I’ve never talked to anybody that’s ever even heard that.
And I was just wondering if you guys knew the answer.
So falling to staves, like S-T-A-V-E-S, falling to staves?
Yes.
Okay.
That’s my understanding.
You know, I asked my mom to spell it out for me years ago, so that’s what she said.
Okay.
-huh.
And by that they meant really hungry or just otherwise in a bad way?
I’m falling to staves, Grandma?
The way I took it was that they were just starving to death, like just vanished.
Okay, okay.
Well, I can see how you would use it in that way, because to fall to staves means to fall to pieces, literally.
You know how a barrel has those staves, those slats of wood that are curved and they’re held together by metal?
Yeah.
On a barrel or a butter churn or even silos, those big, long strips are called staves.
And so if you’re falling to staves, it’s just like the metal part that holds everything together has come off.
The bands have come loose?
Yeah, the bands have come loose, and all these pieces just fall apart.
So it goes some barrel-to-boards in like a minute.
In a second, yeah.
In a second, yeah.
They just go crashing to the ground.
Are you familiar with the word staves in that sense?
Yeah, you know, doing the research, you know, I discovered that a stave was part of a barrel, but I never correlated that with anything about being hungry.
So, you know, I was always confused, but it was kind of a going joke in my household because my mom used to use it a lot, and, of course, I picked it up and started using it.
And I use it with my boys now, but I think my generation is going to be the last one because they didn’t pick it up.
Oh, shoot, I hope not.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it’s great.
It’s been around since the 19th century, and there’s something wonderful about that image of just these pieces of wood just kind of clattering to the floor.
You’re just completely falling apart.
You’re so hungry.
Right, so in the family sense, they’re hungry, and maybe they’re starting to look like thieves, stick thin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It seems like a reach, but, you know, I just always just, it seemed like it rolled off the tongue really nice.
And, you know, we always had a good laugh about it, you know, after, you know, it was said.
So, you know, that’s what’s left with me and my life is, you know, it’s just a good memory.
That’s excellent.
And, Bruce, I’ve got to tell you, you might be surprised that when your children grow up, they might start talking a lot more like you.
They might use that phrase.
I hope.
That would be very daring.
Bruce, thank you so much for your call.
Really appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you so much.
All righty, Bruce.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Bye-bye.
You know, Grant, speaking of hunger, when you stave off hunger, you’re sort of holding it at bay as if it’s with a stick.
You’re holding a stave and fighting off this hungry beast of hunger?
Yeah.
Apparently that goes back to the old practice of dog baiting or bear baiting.
Oh, interesting.
Holding a stick and keeping that animal away.
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