Knock On Wood

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you? This is Tom from Ocracoke, North Carolina.

Well, hello, Tom. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

Oh, boy.

Are you a native to Ocracoke?

No. I moved here about five years ago.

I’m not even really a native from where I moved from, which was Connecticut, but that’s where I’d lived for quite a while before I moved to Ocracoke.

Oh, Tom, I love Ocracoke.

I went on vacation there one year.

Got really sunburned.

You can do that there.

Ocracoke is a beautiful place.

It’s a part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Right.

But for me, Ocracoke has an interest because it’s one of the most studied language communities in North America.

And I know some of the people who’ve done some of the research, Walt Wolfram and his gang at North Carolina State.

He’s been on the island doing research for quite a long time.

That’s not what I’m calling about, but it happens coincidentally that Ocracoke is a place of interest to people who study words.

We could do a whole program about that.

You can’t live there and not become aware of the work that’s gone on and just aware of that accent and that culture.

It’s a really strong storytelling culture, so there’s a lot of talking that goes on, and you hear it all the time.

But I do have a question.

Okay, shoot, yeah.

Unrelated to Ocracoke, and that is, what do you know about the origin of the expression knock on wood? My wife and I were driving to Richmond from Ocracoke, and we drove by a spot on the highway where the last time we went to Richmond, our car broke down. And my wife said, that’s where we broke down.

And I said, knock on wood.

We’re past that.

And I think that’s how it’s used to sort of try to push away some potential bad luck.

Yeah, and you probably didn’t even have any wood to knock on unless you had one of those station wagons with the wood on the side.

I knocked on vinyl, I think.

Knocked on vinyl.

Oh, boy.

Well, this one is an etymological puzzle, I’m sorry to say.

I’m not sure we have a good answer about why knock on wood.

There have been all kinds of theories about maybe it goes back to pre-Christian times and druids knocking on trees to alert the gods within.

Or back to Ireland when people would knock on the trees to let the little people know that they needed some help with something.

The truth is that we don’t know.

And what’s really odd to me, Grant, about this is that this expression seems, every time you hear about it, the explanations go way, way back.

But we don’t see this expression until, what, the late 19th century?

Yeah.

In English, it’s odd.

You would think it would be back in the 1500s or something.

Well, there are a few variants as well.

There’s also, in Britain, they’re more likely to say touchwood.

Yeah, yeah.

In parts of the American South, they might say peckonwood instead of peckonwood knock on wood.

I haven’t heard that one.

Instead of knock on wood.

I use it myself, even though I’m also not superstitious.

Tom, it sounded like you said it when you were driving toward Richmond, but you didn’t actually knock on wood, right?

You only said the words.

I think that saying the words is good enough, but I did accompany it with the actual motion, even though I didn’t have wood to knock on.

Knocked on vinyl.

And I also noticed that sometimes in casual conversation, people will use it and not even say the words knock on wood, but just continue with the conversation, but reach over and knock on some wood.

Right.

I think any amount of that, I mean, you know, whatever it takes to bring a little bit of good luck.

Yeah, it usually works, right?

So far, it’s worked, yeah.

I mean, that’s the important thing.

You guys didn’t break down.

And, yeah, it’s a real mystery.

We get that question from time to time.

Huh.

And we just don’t have a good answer.

Is it used in other parts of the world?

Yes.

Yeah.

You see it in Spanish.

It’s touch wood or strike wood, the translation.

So it’s a mystery.

Well, that’s an answer of a sort.

Well, thank you.

I didn’t call up hoping that I would stump the chumps, but thank you for trying to answer my question.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

Take care.

All right.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

We’ll link to some information about the dialect of Ocracoke, North Carolina.

That’s really interesting stuff.

Oh, yeah, I’m all tingly.

I know there’s video and audio out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good summaries, too, if you don’t want to get too far into it.

Yeah, it was great to talk to somebody who was transplanted there and is observing it all around him.

The hairs on my neck are standing up.

Well, if you want to try to stump the chumps, you probably will.

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