A Huntsville, Alabama, physical therapist notes that patients with a hamstring cramp will sometimes say “I’ve got a rising in my leader.” Rising is a dialect term for swelling, and leader is a dialect term for tendon or muscle, perhaps inspired by the old use of the term leader for the ropy stalk of a plant. Another dialectal term for a medical condition is the sugar, which means diabetes. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Rising in My Leader”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hey there, this is Bo calling from Huntsville, Alabama.
How are you?
Excellent.
Welcome to the show.
Hi, Bo.
What’s up?
How are you?
I’m a physical therapist in Huntsville, Alabama.
When I was a student about six years ago, my clinical instructor warned me in rural northeast Georgia. She said, so you’re going to get this question, you’re going to get patients that say this. They’re going to say, I got a risin in my leader.
And when they say that, it means a hamstring cramp. But I thought she was crazy, and I kid you not, like this second patient we saw started locking up in their hamstring after a total knee replacement.
And they said, I’m a leader, my leader. It’s rising. I got a rising in my leader.
And I have been super curious ever since to know where that came from because I hear it in rural north Alabama just like I heard it there. I hear it about once every 10 patients I’ll catch it. Some patients know what I’m talking about. Some have no idea, and they don’t even know where it came from.
But I’m curious.
And, Bo, how do you think they’re spelling leader?
Yeah, that’s a good question.
So my colleagues and I were talking about it, and we were like, maybe it’s like lederhosen or something like that.
So some sort of a German background.
I don’t know if it’s leader, like leader of soda or water, or if it’s leader, like L-E-A-D-E-R.
My first impression would be like L-I-T-E-R or L-E-I, something like that.
I’m terrible at spelling anyway, though.
Oh, this is so wonderful.
Yeah, the word that they’re using is leader, L-E-A-D-E-R.
And it’s an old word that means a sinew or a tendon.
It’s also interesting that they use the word risin.
Have you heard risin in relation to any other ailment?
Yeah, some patients will say it’s kind of rising up on them.
They’re usually talking about a muscle, but they say it’s kind of rising up on me when I turn my head.
I figured I understood what that meant.
But yeah, risin, like rising, but without the G, that’s the N at the end.
Right, right.
And a risin, it means swelling.
Like you might have a risin on your finger or something.
So if you’ve got a risin in your leader, your sinews or your tendons, then yeah, I can see how that would be a swelling that causes a cramp.
Do people ever say that they pulled a leader just to mean that they’ve got a sore muscle?
They do call it a leader separately sometimes from Ryzen.
They’ll just say, my leader hurts.
But they’re always talking about their hamstring. I’ve never heard it talked about with the forearm or the shoulder or the neck. I thought that was interesting.
Yeah, you will find the word leader in medical dictionaries from the turn of the last century. Oh, you find it going back to the 1700s. Oh, really? Medical dictionaries. Medical dictionaries, a variety of different texts. Stuff. Yeah. Yeah. They don’t teach us that in school. Well, that’s why we exist. Yeah. But there’s one theory that I really love about why it’s a leader and it may have something to do with either ropes or with roots or plants. For example, one of the pieces of jargon in the plant world is the leader is the main stalk or branch or trunk or root around which all the other ones kind of attach or appear or are secondary to it.
So that’s a lead. But also in ropes, when you’re learning how to tie ropes, they will talk about the leader, and this is the one that’s going in, around, and through in order to create a particular knot. Interesting.
Yeah, and the other idea that informs that, I think, is the fact that sometimes the word guider is used in the same way as a leader. To mean a leader. Yeah, so you think of somebody like using a rope to guide an animal or something. Could be. All right. Perfect.
But you know what? I bet you hear other great medical vocabulary there in that area, and I would love it if you call us again sometime with more. Sure will do. Okay. Thanks, Beau. Take care. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. Bye.
Yeah, the editors of the Dictionary of American Regional English did surveys where they went around the country, recorded people, and they asked them a lot of questions about ailments, things that are wrong with the body, and this is one of the answers that came up. But one of the other ones that people might be more familiar with is diabetes called the sugar. The sugar. I’ve got the sugar. And if a doctor starts a new practice in a place where they don’t speak the local English dialect, they might be befuddled at first trying to figure out what a patient. Yeah, I was diagnosed with the sugar and I need my medicine.
