Jubous, Jubious

Hello there. You have A Way with Words. Great. This is Alan O’Neill. How are you?

I’m doing well. Where are you, Alan? I am in Charleston County, South Carolina, in the little hamlet of Hollywood, which is located about 20 miles south of the Historic District.

Welcome to the show, Alan. What can we do for you? Well, I grew up in eastern North Carolina, as did my mother. And she often used the word jubus. I’m not sure how it’s spelled, but she would use it in the context of being weary of something or not quite sure. Maybe thinking, I’m a little skeptical of that. And she used it often.

That sounds just about right. She would not be alone in that. It’s a pronunciation of dubious, D-U-B-I-O-U-S. Jubus. And jubus has had multiple spellings, J-U-B-O-U-S, J-U-B-U-S, D-U-B-O-U-S, D-U-B-U-S. You are more likely to hear it in the American South, but there are forms of it known in various English dialects and in Scotland. So West Yorkshire, Cheshire, Leicestershire, and Shropshire.

And it’s got evidence of 200 years of use in the United States. So, yeah, all meaning kind of doubtful or suspicious. Like, I’m dubious about Tom. I believe he’s going out with a young woman for he’s put on his Sunday suit twice this week. That’s a quote from one of my dictionaries.

Right. Well, that’s interesting because that’s exactly the context in which she used it. And she has departed, unfortunately, but she was of Scottish heritage. Her maiden name was Grant.

How about that? Sometimes you might hear juberous, J-U-B-E-R-O-U-S, or guberous or gubbers. And all of these are gubious. All of these are variations on dubious. Some of them are spread outside of the South, like you might hear those latter ones in New England. But they’re all just basically dialect pronunciations of dubious with hundreds of years of history going back to the old world.

That is interesting. A synonym is dubersome, if you’d like to go that direction. I like that. Dubersome. I like that.

Right. And how is that spelled? D-U-B-E-R-S-O-M-E. Dubersome. Okay. I’m dubersome of this guy who says he’s going to fix my car for $50. I just don’t think he’s going to do a good job. And he certainly wouldn’t do a good job today for $50, would he?

No, he would not. Hey, Alan, thanks so much for calling. Thank you all. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and I enjoy your show. Thank you so much. Take care. Call us again sometime, Alan.

I will. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye. You too. Bye-bye. All righty. Bye-bye. Bye.

So J-U-B-O-U-S is probably the usage that he’s talking about. Yeah, J-U-B-O-U-S or J-U-B-U-S. Very likely. Heard by many people in the American South, I bet a lot of ears perked up when he said that. 877-929-9673.