Gone Pecan, A Southern Saying

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Robin Ligon Williams calling from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Welcome, Robin.

Hi, Robin. How are you doing?

I’m doing pretty good. How are you guys doing today?

All right. How can we help you?

Well, I had called because I had an interesting expression that I wanted to share with you guys.

The expression is one that I’ve heard ever since I’ve lived in New Orleans.

It’s called gone pecan.

Gone pecan.

What’s it mean?

Well, it’s used in a lot of different ways.

Gone pecan could be a person.

For instance, if somebody partied too much at Mardi Gras

And they didn’t really have control of themselves anymore,

Because you know that happens quite a lot down here.

No.

You wouldn’t know, but yeah.

If they’re really out there, if they’ve really gone overboard,

We say that’s a gone pecan.

Oh, really?

And you’re from New Orleans originally?

No.

I am not. I am from New York City originally, but I moved to New Orleans in my early 20s,

And I lived here for almost 12 years, and I moved to Indianapolis, and then I moved back to New Orleans.

Okay, very good.

I’ve spent probably half my life in New Orleans at various times.

And so you haven’t probably heard that term anywhere else.

I’ve never heard it anywhere else.

So it refers to the person, like Robin’s gone pecan.

It means that she overindulged or something?

She’s kind of, it’s either she’s really down on her luck, she’s, you know, nothing’s going well for you,

Or you’re just kind of, you’re really, you know, you’re not really in control of yourself anymore.

You know, you’ve really overdone it.

I’ve heard a lot of different contexts, actually.

Great, I know this one.

And then also in relationship to something, you know, like if a car gets demolished, for example, it’s a gone pecan.

You know, it’s kind of beyond hell.

It’s a goner.

It’s a goner.

It’s a gone pecan.

I asked you about your history and whether or not you were from there because I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard it from anyone else who wasn’t from Louisiana.

Unless they also picked it up from somebody from Louisiana.

Yeah, I believe it’s a colloquial expression.

Yeah.

The earliest use I found was in 1990.

I’m pretty sure it’s older than that.

But I seem to remember, tell me if you remember this, Robin,

A song by the country singer Jerry Reed that includes it.

And it might have been part of his, I don’t know,

His patter that he did when he was imitating trucker lingo.

I’m not 100% sure.

Does that ring any bells?

I’m not familiar with the Jerry Reed tune,

But I’ve heard it in songs from time to time.

But, I mean, I think it comes kind of somewhere from, like,

Maybe Lafayette, Louisiana, and sort of the Cajun area,

Abbeville, those areas.

I think it really comes from there, but the first time I heard it was from an Irish-Italian person,

Who we call that a yat.

There’s another nickname for Irish-Italian immigrants or people who come from that background.

Yats, I heard a yat say gone pecan.

Well, it is indeed a very distinctive local expression.

One of the things that is important to note is you can’t really say this expression unless you say pecan and not pecan.

Gone pecan just doesn’t have the same ring as gone pecan.

It doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work.

But I think the way that the Yats say, they say gone pecan.

It’s more of a gone pecan.

Nice.

I have Italian immigrants here have more of a Brooklyn accent, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s funny.

Gone pecan.

It’s very odd.

So does it have to do with the nuts or the rhyme or what?

Yeah, it’s the rhyme.

You’re a goner.

You’re gone.

Gone is often used in English to mean depleted or destroyed.

Or somehow ruined or at the end of your resources, right?

And it’s a natural rhyme.

There’s a lot of kind of these rhyming, slangy phrases in English.

So gone pecan is just kind of a natural rhyme.

Okay.

Yep.

Cool. Thanks, Robin. Much appreciated.

Thank you so much.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

My dictionary definition that I wrote was a person who was doomed, defeated, or beyond rescue, a goner.

I like that.

And is it like, so it’s like a dead duck or something.

Just something that’s completely gone?

Or can you say somebody is gone pecan?

It’s almost always the person.

Okay.

Yeah.

So a person is gone.

Like one of the citations that recorded was a politician who was trying to stay in office,

And yet these very revealing phone recordings had come out that exposed them as a fraud and a grafter, right?

And that person was headed out of office.

They were a gone pecan.

A gone pecan.

Okay.

All right.

Very good.

We’d love to talk about local and regional expressions.

We’d love to hear yours, 877-929-9673, or words@waywordradio.org.