John from Dallas, Texas, was surprised to learn that a relative who said she was on her way to plant flags at a loved one’s gravesite meant she was going to plant flowers. In addition to meaning “cloth banner,” the word flag is another name for the flower known as an iris. The flag in this sense may come from an old Scandinavian word meaning “reed” or “rush.” There is a long tradition of planting irises at gravesites, and in fact, a variety of white iris is so commonly used, particularly in the American South, that it’s known as the cemetery iris. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Different Kind of Colorful Flag”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, guys. I’m so happy to be on. I’m John from Dallas, Texas.
Hi, John. Welcome to the show.
Thanks. I appreciate it.
So I have a question. It has a little bit of a story first, and then I’ll get to my question.
So all my life, my father, who was born in 1928 in Springfield, Ohio, and grew up there, he talked about that they would go to the cemetery on what they called Decoration Day back then, when he was a kid, you know, five, six, seven years old. Now we call it Memorial Day, of course.
He said they would plant flags at the graves of the veterans, and I think also some of his family members as well. But anyway, he called it planting flags. So my whole life, I assumed that that meant he would take a little stick with a flag on it and put it in the ground. Well, after he died, my mom, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1935, she went on Memorial Day to his cemetery and said said she was going to bring a flag or flags to his grave.
And she sent a picture of his grave site with what she called the flag on it, and it was an iris.
And so I called her and said, what is that flower? I thought you were bringing a flag.
And she said, yeah, that’s what your father called irises was flags. And she explained the whole thing to me, and I just couldn’t believe, because my whole life I thought that he was taking little American flags to the cemetery when in reality they were taking irises.
Now, she said she growing up in Cincinnati did not call irises flags. But I did ask my dad’s sister, who was born in 34 in Springfield, Ohio, and she says she absolutely remembers that they called them flags. And she actually had irises growing on the side of their house. And they would cut them and take them out to the cemetery. And that’s what they called planting flags.
And I did ask her if she still calls them that. She says, oh, yes, I still call irises flags often. But I asked about her kids, who several of them are still in Springfield, and she says, oh, no, they would never call them flags. They would call them irises.
So my question is, I’m just curious, was that a highly localized thing? Has it completely gone away? You know, because like I said, her kids are in Springfield now, don’t say it. So I’m just really curious about that whole origin of the flags and the irises and why my dad would have called irises flags.
Oh, fascinating.
There is a white iris, iris albicans, which is also known as the cemetery iris. And it’s something that is planted in a lot of cemeteries, particularly throughout the South. There’s this long, long tradition of planting white irises in cemeteries. It’s a tradition that goes all the way back to North Africa and found its way to Spain. And then from the Spanish who settled in Florida, it spread throughout the South.
Now, is there any guess how, I mean, does it look like a flag? Is there any particular flag it looks like? Or any guess how the term came about? Or is there another derivation of flag that I’m totally missing that means nothing to do, like a banner?
Well, that’s a very good question because the etymology of the flag that symbolizes a nation and the flag that is an iris plant, they’re both kind of murky, but the plant flag may come from an old word that means reed or rush, refers to a kind of reed and tall, skinny flower. The flag that’s made out of cloth, again, is another sort of murky etymology. It may have to do with the sound of it flapping in the wind, or some people think that it has to do with the way that it flutters, but we really, really don’t know the origins of that.
And there may be some overlap between the fluttering of a flag and the fluttering of those early Irish blossoms. That’s actually one of my favorite words is onomatopoeia. I know you guys like to talk about your favorite words, and so flag man should be an onomatopoeia.
Yeah.
So anyway, the whole thing is just so fascinating. I sure do appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out with this.
Sure thing, John. We’re glad you called. Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing this memory.
All right. Bye-bye.
Thanks so much, guys.
Bye-bye.
Bye now.
Well, Martha has a sideline in flower etymologies. You may not have known it. We’d love to talk to you about flowers and flower words. Give us a call, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org or send us a picture of what you’ve been growing and we’ll talk about the language associated with those plants on Twitter @wayword.
