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Pale as a Haint

Ashley in Danville, Kentucky, says that if she’s looking pale or wan, her mother will say You look like a haint. The dialectal term haint is used throughout much of the American South to mean “ghost” or “evil spirit” and is a form of the word haunt. In the Gullah Geechee culture of South Carolina, the descendants of enslaved Africans have a long tradition of trying to ward off haints with a light shade of blue called haint blue. This is part of a complete episode.

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