How Much = What’s Their Name

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning. This is Jack Cook. I’m from a little town called Sentinel Butte, North Dakota, which is right on the Montana border.

Welcome, Jack. What can we do for you?

In North Dakota, there’s a lot of slang and a lot of things.

One of them is, if I ask for somebody’s last name, instead of saying, what’s your last name, I’ll say Martha Howmuch.

And I don’t know where that came from.

I don’t know what it means.

I’ve heard my aunts and uncles, grandparents, parents have used that slang.

They’re all gone now, so I don’t know where it came from.

And I was wondering if you guys had ever heard that.

Like Martha Howmuch for a last name.

Oh, yeah.

So instead of saying Martha who or Martha what’s her name?

Yeah.

I’ve never been called Martha Howmuch.

Well, the country is cowboys and rodeo and ranching, and everybody had nicknames, a lot of slang and things.

But I wasn’t sure if that was just local up there or if it was all over.

I hadn’t heard it anywhere else.

No, it’s not just up there.

It’s not just cowboy country, ranch country.

And there are two citations for this in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

One from Grant County, Indiana, as of the 1890s,

And another one from Wisconsin.

But that’s it.

But those are enough to let you know that it exists.

But, boy, there is not a lot of data on this.

And so I think what we’re going to have to do is throw open the windows

And holler out to the Way With Words listeners and see who else uses that.

Good enough. Thank you.

Okay. Take care, Jack.

Yep. We’ll talk to you later.

All righty.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Have you ever heard anybody use the words how much when they can’t remember somebody’s last name

And they say Grant Howmuch or Martha Howmuch?

Let us know, 877-929-9673.

Or send your stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.