Katie, an 11-year-old in Tallahassee, Florida, asks about I swanee, a phrase her grandfather from the mountains of Virginia used when he was frustrated but did not want to swear. The mild oath, also heard as I’ll swanny and shortened to I’ll swan, may go back to the Northern English dialect expression I shall warrant, meaning roughly “I swear.” It’s now used mainly in the US South, and Katie has picked it up as a linguistic heirloom. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““I Swanee” Is a Mild Oath for Swearing without Swearing”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Katie. I’m from Tallahassee, Florida.
Hello, Katie. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Katie.
What’s up?
Well, I have a question about a word that my grandfather used to use a lot, al-swani. And I just found out lately that another close friend of mine’s parents used to say it, too. And I was just wondering what the origin of that word is and what it means.
And you said it was a grandparent of yours?
Yeah, my grandfather used to use it. He used to live up in the mountains of Virginia.
-huh.
And our family friend’s parents lived in Alabama, so I don’t know where this region is. Is it a regional thing?
Okay.
So it’s I, Swanee?
Mm—
And what kind of context, Katie, would you hear your grandfather say it in?
He’d say it all the time. You know, if he got frustrated with my grandmother or me, he’d go, I, Swanee, I’m just going to go to my room. Or, you know, everything like that.
Was he a particularly conservative person?
Yes, he was a gospel singer. He used to be in quartets and he sang in gospels and stuff. So he was kind of conservative. He didn’t talk a lot.
Okay.
All right.
So he’s conservative with his language, too, then. I see where you’re going with this.
You do see where I’m going.
Yes.
Yes.
Because Swanee is a kind of mild oath. It’s a way of exclaiming without saying anything naughty, without taking the Lord’s name in vain or anything like that. It may actually go back to a Northern English dialect expression, I shall warrant, meaning basically I swear.
But I don’t know about your grandfather, but my mother wouldn’t swear.
She was a Southern Baptist.
No, my grandfather would never swear.
But there you go.
My grandfather, he would never swear.
There you go.
So the Northern English dialect version of it was I shall warrant. So W-A-R-R-A-N-T.
So this is just a consolidation slash corruption slash condensation of those words?
Yeah, I shall warrant, meaning I shall swear, but without saying swear. But yeah, my mom was a Southern Baptist from the Blue Ridge, and so she wasn’t about to swear. And it sounds like your grandfather was sort of the same.
Yeah, that’s really interesting.
Isn’t that cool?
Do you say it yourself now, Katie?
Yeah, I say it sometimes.
Do you say it just unconsciously or kind of ironically?
Sometimes I’ll say it unconsciously because he used to say it a lot. And then, you know, I picked it up because I was around him a lot.
Oh, I love that.
Carry it on.
And he, by the time it got to him, he had hundreds of years of history anyway. And if you carry it on, it’ll just keep going.
Right.
That’s great.
And thank you, guys. I was just really curious what it was, the origin and what it meant.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s it.
It’s a way of swearing without swearing. And it’s what we call a linguistic heirloom in that you’re going to be carrying on your grandfather’s expression.
Oh, that’s really cool.
Thanks, guys.
Katie, love to talk to you. It’s great.
Thanks for calling. I really appreciate it.
No problem.
Goodbye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
So in this country, even now, it’s still used mainly in the American South, right? Maybe kind of bleeds a little bit into some of the surrounding areas, but still showing that settlement pattern of people from the Scots-speaking regions and so forth, right? Or Northern England, right?
Scots-Irish, yeah.
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