Spagglers and Mary Washington

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there. My name is Trevor Wyatt, and I’m calling from Abilene, Texas.

Hi, Trevor. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Trevor.

What’s up?

Well, I live in Texas, and I’ve lived in Texas most of my life.

But my mom is from Chicago, and my father’s from a little town in Maryland called Elkton.

And for a long time, we used to go up to Maryland all the time.

And we would have these things that we called spagglers.

And so I didn’t think anything of it.

I just thought that’s what they were called.

So I get to college eventually, and I go up to the lunch line and ask for some spagglers.

And the guy looks at me like I’m crazy, like he’s never heard that word before in his life.

So I look at the sign and see what they’re called, and they’re called asparagus.

Oh.

So I had never heard them called that before in my life.

Really?

Never?

But apparently that’s what everybody calls them.

So I was wondering if it was just the fact my grandpa probably didn’t even finish middle school and was not a highly educated man and didn’t have the clearest hearing either.

So I was wondering if that was a part of it or if it was just something that people said up there.

I may ask you a question.

Did you have this whole separate track of knowledge about asparagus, though, at the same time?

Did you know that the word asparagus existed and that it referred to a vegetable?

Yes, I did.

I knew that asparagus was a vegetable.

I just didn’t know that it was that.

Right.

Oh, my gosh, that’s great.

So you didn’t learn about asparagus until you went to college.

No, absolutely not.

And I felt like an idiot afterwards.

Oh, no.

Oh, but here we are laughing at your misfortune.

Yeah, because it makes our day.

I have not ever seen spagglers.

No.

And asparagus is just a weird word that lends itself to lots of variation.

It goes by lots of different names all around the country, like sparrow grass.

Aspirin grass.

Aspirin grass, yeah.

Aspare guts I’ve seen.

Dusty roots in Louisiana.

And a lot of times the A drops off.

It’s a…

So asparagus.

Asparagus, yeah.

Aspatic, yeah.

In upstate New York, it’s called, in some places, Martha Washington or Mary Washington.

What?

Go figure.

I didn’t know that.

Go figure.

So there are probably people going to school in Syracuse right now who are learning that it’s not necessarily Martha Washington.

Well, that’s really interesting.

I’d never heard that before.

Thank you so much for, you know, opening my eyes to that.

Yeah, a ton of people say other things.

Don’t feel too bad about it.

Though I have to say I haven’t seen Spaggler’s on the record anywhere.

Yours is the first time I’ve seen it.

It’s a nice, I like it.

Was he a jokey person?

Maybe it was just one of those family words that somebody mispronounced once?

It might have been one of those family words because he was,

He tried to joke around with us as much as he could.

So maybe he knew what it was and then was acting like he didn’t know what it was and then taught his entire family as kind of a cool joke.

And sent you out in the world.

Trevor, I love this linguistic heirloom of yours.

I think you should keep it and spread it around.

It’s a gift to hold tight to.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Thank you for calling.

Yeah, thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Some places it’s called Rich Man’s Vegetable.

Some places it’s called Cow Feed.

I like Dusty Roots in Louisiana.

Dusty Roots.

Beet Greens.

Give me some Beet Greens.

Beet Greens.

I’ve never heard that one.

Beet Greens.

This show is about history, culture, and family, all wrapped up in language.

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