Theresa in Lyman, South Carolina, says her mother has long used the word quare to describe someone who is “odd” or “set in their ways” or otherwise “peculiar,” as in They’re the quarest people I’ve ever met. The term quare, also spelled quar, reflects the Irish pronunciation of the word queer, and its distribution in the United States reflects Scot-Irish settlement patterns. Quare in this sense simply means “peculiar,” and can also be used as an intensifier, as in It’s quare hot today. Likewise, the phrase to go quare has nothing to do with sexual orientation; it simply means “to seem unusual.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Quare, as in Peculiar”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Teresa from Lyman, South Carolina.
Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Teresa.
Thank you. Hi.
My mom has been saying this my whole life.
And I asked her where she got it from.
She goes, well, I’ve heard it my whole life, which is not a very good explanation.
But it’s queer.
She will say it about people that are, like, odd, like are kind of set in their ways.
And I don’t know, is it a form of queer? Or any ideas?
So we’re talking about somebody that wears their clothes inside out or likes funny hats.
What are we talking about?
Usually it’s like people that don’t eat certain foods or like she was talking about a couple that she knows.
And like no matter how sick they are, they don’t want to go to the doctor.
And she’ll say, they’re the queerest people I’ve ever met.
Queer.
Got it.
That’s wonderful.
And have you ever seen the term spelled out?
I have not.
I have not.
Okay.
But, I mean, you know, we’re Southerners, so we say everything a little different.
Yeah, queer is a word that you will hear in the American South, and it’s usually spelled Q-U-A-R-E or sometimes Q-U-A-R.
And it means, as you suggested, it describes somebody who’s a little strange, unusual,
And what’s really cool about this word queer is that it’s an Irish pronunciation of the word queer.
And by queer we’re not referring specifically to sexual orientation we’re talking about, you know, somebody who’s a little peculiar but harmless.
I mean like those people you were describing, you know, they’re the queerest people you’ve ever seen.
And yeah, you hear this through much of the American South.
And what’s really nice about this is that it’s a lovely vestige of those Scots-Irish settlement patterns in the South.
And so yeah, you describe somebody as queer, meaning strange or unusual.
It gave rise to the verb phrase to go queer, meaning to seem strange or seem unusual.
And also what’s cool in Irish English is that queer can also be an intensifier.
Like it’s queer hot outside.
Really?
Yeah.
Is it queer hot there today?
It really, really is queer today.
It’s on our DNA, and we are Scots-Irish from Tennessee.
It’s where my sister calls them Mountain Hoogers.
So that sounds right.
Take care now, Teresa.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Take care now.
All right.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Well, we aim to please and delight.
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Call us, and we’ll explain your flags to you.
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