A woman who has spent most of her life in Des Moines, Iowa, says she’s always used the word squinny for chipmunk, but doesn’t hear it outside of her hometown. The term is definitely specific to Iowa, but an even more common word for the same striped animal in that area is grinnie. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Squinnines and Grinnies”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Kavya. I’m from Des Moines, Iowa.
Hi, Kavya. Welcome to the show.
Thank you.
What would you like to talk with us about?
Well, I’ve lived on and off in Des Moines my whole life,
And when I was a kid, I thought that I was calling chipmunks the wrong thing
Because everyone around me called them squinnies,
Which I assume means mini squirrels or something.
And I’ve never heard anyone from any other state or even any other city,
Like even in Iowa City, call them that.
And so I was wondering if you know where that came from and why it’s here.
Oh, you really haven’t heard anybody else in Iowa say it?
A lot of people in Des Moines say it, but, you know, I have a couple friends who live in Iowa City,
And I said, have you ever heard them called squinnies?
And they said, what are you talking about?
So just to clarify, squinnies, like S-Q-U-I-N-N-I-E-S?
I’ve never seen it written down, but that’s what I would assume.
And these are, what kind of creatures are these?
They’re chipmunks, three-lined ground squirrels.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it’s really interesting that you mentioned that because it is pretty much particular to Iowa.
Oh, really?
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t see references to it much of any place else besides Iowa.
And it’s a term that indeed means chipmunks or ground squirrels, little bitty squirrels.
And we really don’t know the origin of it.
There’s another term that some people use, grinnies, for the same little animal.
Also, mostly in Iowa, though, a few other states also have it.
And that’s when grinnies apparently is far more common.
Yes.
There’s a lot more evidence from that.
Really?
I’ve never heard grinnies before.
Oh, you’ve never heard that one?
No.
That’s cute.
Well, I consulted with the Iowa expert in my house, which is my wife who grew up in Grinnell, just down the interstate from you.
And she knows grinnies, and she insists that it’s only the kind that have the stripes.
If they don’t have the stripes, they’re not a grinnie.
Yeah.
It’s the same as grinnies.
It’s just the chipmunks.
It’s not an actual sport.
Yeah.
Yeah, and names like that for little animals, they’re often kind of variable.
They kind of move from one animal to another, sort of like plants sometimes.
Right.
You can have a lot of different plants called daisy, but they might be very different from each other.
Right, right.
But, yeah, squinting.
I always thought, I mean, I’ve run across this word before,
And I always assumed it was because they came out of the ground squinting, you know, kind of blinking into the sunlight.
But I don’t think that’s it.
We just don’t know.
We don’t know.
I bet if you went out into the countryside and talked to folks, just go find fish fries and barbecues and yard sales,
I bet if you talked to people, you’d find other people who say grinnies and squinnies.
Yeah, probably.
It’s cool that it’s just an Iowan thing.
Yeah.
I wish we knew where it came from, but I guess mini squirrels is the best theory that I have.
Yeah, mini squirrels, maybe.
It could be some indigenous word particular to that part of the country.
Yeah, we just don’t know.
We just don’t know.
Kavia, thank you so much for your call.
We really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you guys.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye.
Thanks.
Squinnies.
Yeah, so Squinnies, we don’t have a lot of citational evidence for that.
No.
1970s, it’s probably older.
And then Grinnies, we have back to at least the 1920s, but again, probably older.
So you think Grinnies is older than Squinnies?
Like I was saying, there’s more evidence for it, which usually means it’s more widespread.
People are more likely to put it in letters and diaries and newspaper columns, that sort of thing.
