Glegged

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning. This is Robert Gordon. Aloha from Hawaii, the big island.

Aloha.

What can we help you with?

Well, I had a grandmother, Granny Gordon, that lived in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and also our family came from Gettysburg.

It was a powerful influence on us being in Gettysburg, I think.

And Granny used to say, oh, Lee’s Army had to skedaddle.

And I found this in an old newspaper, too.

As if the word skedaddle was some kind of an insult that they had made up or something to make fun of the southern troops.

She also said a couple other funny things.

Before a journey, she got journey proud or travel proud.

Yeah, we know that one.

Yeah, we’ve talked about that one on the show.

I want to hear about that one because I never heard it from anybody else, and I get it very badly.

And finally she said, oh, you’re just glegged, old top.

She called me old top.

She said, you’re just glegged.

Glegged.

I said, what’s that, Grant?

He said, oh, that’s too lazy to be any good at all.

Legged.

I don’t know that one.

She sounds like she had a bit of fire in her.

Oh, she was all milquetoast, really, inside.

Yeah, but she was a tough old Presbyterian lady, I guess.

Yeah, you’ve got to watch out for those Presbyterian ladies.

Well, let’s break these down as quickly as we can.

Skedaddle’s really interesting.

It did appear at first during the American Civil War.

1961 is when we find it first in print in a New York newspaper to talk about soldiers retreating, and probably not a formal retreat, but more the disorganized fleeing for your life kind of retreat.

We do not know where Skedetto comes from.

They’re one of the best etymologists in the world.

Anatoly Lieberman has put his mind to it and come up with lots of theories, none of them which hold any water.

He’s got page after page in his book called The Analytical Dictionary of English Etymology.

And so it’s a big mystery where we get Skedetto.

But, yeah, it did come up during the American Civil War.

To be journey proud, as we’ve talked about on the show, that’s, Martha, that’s your domain, right?

Journey proud.

I think proud has to do with being big or swelling or something like that.

Like you can have proud skin, which is a raised part of your skin.

And so if you’re journey proud, you’re just bursting with.

Bursting with the get up and go.

Yeah.

Well, it’s on the night before a trip.

You’re all packed.

You’re so psyched to go.

Right.

So you’re like.

It’s kind of the opposite in our family.

Granny couldn’t do anything for a week.

She was always rechecking her lists.

Me, I can’t sleep for two or three nights before a trip, the older I get.

And it was not really a good thing, although it was a form of energy, yes,

But Granny wasn’t happy about it.

Well, yeah, that’s sort of like German Reisefieber,

Which is, again, that agitation before a trip.

Ich habe in kein Deutsch.

Nein?

So, Robert, your other term was glect, G-L-E-G-E-D?

Glegged.

You’re just glegged, she said.

Glegged.

I don’t know how to spell it.

And she used it in what condition?

What circumstances?

It was an affectionate way of her telling her grandson that he’d better get up and take out the garbage.

Oh, interesting.

Glegged, you know, you just don’t do anything.

And it’s true.

I’m like Stephen Foster.

I just would lay around and play music all the time.

That’s the kind of guy I am.

Collegade comes up in some old dialect dictionaries in the United Kingdom from quite a while ago,

But it just means to look a sconce or to glance at or to look upon something.

To look a sconce.

So maybe it’s a dim chance that it has something to do with you just kind of standing there with your mouth agave,

Looking like I don’t know what you’re doing.

That’s it, that’s it.

I have to ask my sister about that.

You’re just standing there looking cross-eyed and dull.

I don’t know.

I can see it.

Well, I was always lost in thought, you know, someplace far away.

Well, Robert, you’ve been a delight on this show, so we really appreciate it.

Yeah, do follow us again.

Thanks a lot.

Take care, George.

Mahalo.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Cheers.

Bye.

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