Gradoo or Gradu

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is David and I’m from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, David. Welcome to the show.

What’s up?

I have a quick question about a word that my great aunt uses.

And I’m not sure if it’s a family word or a Carolina word, because her family’s from Carolina and or the Carolinas, I guess.

And my family just thinks it’s a family word, but I think it’s got some sort of origin.

And the word is gradu.

And it’s kind of when you’ve got a piece of dirt or food something, it’s kind of grimy, you know?

Kind of similar to schmutz, if you’ve got a little schmutz on you.

Southern schmutz.

You’ve got a little gradu on you or a little gradu on the counter.

And I was wondering if this had any sort of way back origins or if it’s just something my Aunt Betty made up.

And how are you spelling it?

Yeah, how do you spell that?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it spelled.

I would say G-R-A-D-O-O.

Yeah, I think that’s what most English speakers would do probably.

I have seen it as G-R-A-D-U, gradu.

It’s not your Aunt Betty.

She’s not alone on this.

This is fairly common in the United States, particularly in the South, although not common enough to make it even into most slang dictionaries or the Dictionary of American Regional English.

And every usage that I find has it mentioned as crud or gunk or grime or dirt.

Occasionally it’s a little more expansive than that, like a pile of trash could be gradu.

But usually it’s just like a mark or a blemish or some kind of like small little unacceptable griminess.

Yeah, schmutz, like you said.

Schmutz, yeah, schmutz.

Yeah.

So the thing is there’s one entry for this in Paul Dixon’s Book of Family Words, which is funny because you mentioned that you thought it might be a family word, but he specifically says in this entry he has enough people reporting this from around the country that it can’t really be one that exists only for a single family.

A lot of people say it.

That’s so interesting.

It’s really handy, too.

I mean, it sort of sounds like what it is.

Gradeau.

So the last time we talked about this in the show, and it has been a while.

What was that?

Seven years ago or six years, seven years ago?

I had a kind of half-cocked theory that had to do with corruption of the French grado, which would kind of mean greasy water or fat water, water that has stuff in it.

So it’s G-R-A-S space D apostrophe E-A-U.

And it’s not a bad theory, particularly as the entry in Paul Dixon’s Family Words book mentions that it could be wastewater or the dishwater, right?

Or dirty snow or runoff or that sort of thing.

But the thing is, the more I think about that, I don’t have the etymological proof.

I don’t have the citation record that shows that that’s the origin of it.

In the meantime, I found a French word which is very similar, which also means dirty.

And it is cradot.

And so it’s C-R-A-D-O.

And it’s a corruption of a word which is cradangue, or C-R-A-D-I-N-G-U-E.

And they’re both kind of ultimately corruptions of a word meaning filth or filthy.

That word I know has existed in French as slang since the 1960s.

It’s possible that it was transmitted to the United States, although I don’t know how, because French stopped donating new words to anything except the fashion industry in English a long time ago.

So I don’t know how it would have gotten here.

But in any case, it’s on Aunt Betty alone, and it is fairly widespread.

I find evidence in Mississippi, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, a couple people in Virginia.

Unless Aunt Betty really got around.

Unless Aunt Betty, yeah, unless she’s on a speaking tour teaching people a word.

That is so interesting.

I really like the Frenchness of that, like you said.

That’s very cool.

Well, David, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you all.

I appreciate you all a lot.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Have a good one.

Bye.

If you know the word gradu to mean grime or schmutz or crud, let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us the whole story and where you’re from in email to words@waywordradio.org.