Hell’s Half Acre Expression

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Cindy Linscott-Newhouse, and I live in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, but I’m a Michigan native, as you can probably tell.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you, thanks for having me on.

Yeah, sure. What’s on your mind?

Oh, what’s on my mind are some of these funny things that my girlfriend’s mother used to say when we were kids.

And we would just be out all day on our bikes going on big adventures.

And when we’d come home, her mother would say to us, where have you been?

I’ve been looking all over hell’s half acre for you.

All over hell’s half acre for you.

And what did that mean?

Yeah, were you in trouble?

I think I felt like that was a negative thing, but I don’t think I was ever there.

Why did she look all over hell’s half acre?

I was never there.

No wonder she didn’t find us.

Right, right.

So they went to a lot of trouble, and you weren’t there.

It’s got a long history.

My parents always used creation.

They would talk about driving all over creation, which is short for God’s creation.

Oh, okay, okay.

But Hell’s Half Acre has a long history of, say, about 150 years of referring to a small patch of land,

Not exactly a half an acre of an indeterminate size, maybe even indeterminate location.

Sometimes it just meant a backwater, a bit of rubbish, a terrible place that you didn’t want to go, you know, one horse town, that sort of thing.

It’s also sometimes called Devil’s Half Acre.

And then during the wars, depending which war you’re talking about, it could refer to the land between two opposing armies that was under dispute, kind of the DLZ or the no man’s land, the place you didn’t want to go because you’re going to get bullets from both sides.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, I always knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t think I was going to take a bullet.

Right.

So in their mind, Hell’s Half Acre was everywhere, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, so basically an undesirable place.

Yeah, for the most part, it’s something with a bad reputation.

Yeah.

Was that the closest she came to cursing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don’t think I ever heard her do any more than that.

Hell’s Half Acre.

Cindy, thank you so much for calling.

Well, it was my pleasure.

I’m glad you answered that little rule for me.

Thank you.

Take care now.

Anytime.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

We have a lot of terms for little towns.

Hell’s Half Acre is sometimes used for the place you didn’t want to go, right?

Mm—

Someplace out in the boonies.

Yeah.

Podunk.

Grease spot in the road.

Podunk is a classic.

Mm—

God-forsaken place.

Ghost town.

One horse town.

East Jesus is another one.

Oh, yeah.

Send your questions and stories about language to words@waywordradio.org and find us on

Facebook and Twitter.