Transcript of “Spell Someone Off”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Sylvia. I’m calling from Bismarck, North Dakota.
Hello, Sylvia. Welcome to the show.
Yeah, so my family says a phrase.
I always think about it when we make ice cream at my grandma’s house because she is convinced that it tastes better if you crank it by hand.
She’s right.
She’s right.
Of course.
Grandma’s always like, first of all.
But so we crank it by hands, which obviously takes a long time.
And so everyone has to take turns cranking it.
And so if you’ve been cranking it for a while, someone else will come up and say, do you want me to spell you off or spell you?
And that means that they’ll give you a break and take a turn cranking the ice cream.
And we use it for other things, too.
And I thought this was something everyone said until maybe when I went to college and I realized I said it and people didn’t know what it meant.
More recently, I talked to a couple of people that knew it that were big readers.
So then I was thinking maybe it’s just like an older phrase that people might know if they read a lot.
But I would love to know what the origin is and if this is like a regional thing or kind of just not in vogue so much anymore because I love saying it.
And so just to get this phrase out there one more time, it’s to spell someone off, meaning to take their turn at a task.
Yes, correct. Or sometimes we don’t say off, we’ll just say spell you.
Right.
But either one is acceptable.
Yeah. Well, the origin of this word is really, really old. It goes back to Old English. In Old English, there was a, yeah, yeah, from the time of Beowulf, the word spelian, S-P-E-L-I-A-N.
Yeah, yeah. And that word meant simply to substitute for or take the place of. Its origin beyond that is kind of obscure. But by the 16th century, people were using the verb spell to mean to work temporarily, to give somebody a rest, whether they’re, you know, bailing a boat or churning ice cream or churning butter, I guess, in those days.
So that word has been around for a very, very long time.
Sometimes people would talk about working spell and spell.
That is, you know, taking turns.
I take a spell, you take a spell, or spell for a spell.
You’re right that the same idea is reflected in that idea of spell being a period of time.
You know, like sit a spell, or we’re having a dry spell of weather, spell of good weather.
So this has been around for quite some time.
And I’m surprised that other people don’t know this term.
Spell off may be a little bit different.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Yeah.
Yeah, Martha, I think that spell off construction is more unusual, though it’s not unheard of in Australia and the UK.
Okay.
So it doesn’t have anything to do with like regional.
It’s just older and maybe less used by some people?
Yeah, less used.
Yeah, it’s just sprinkled here and there because that’s where it’s lasted.
Wow.
Sylvia, thank you so much for your time.
We appreciate you sharing.
Yes, thank you so much.
And this made my decade, I guess.
It made our decade, too.
So thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Take care of yourself, Sylvia.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Language.
Who knew?
It’s weird as heck.
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