Tabitha from Palmer, Alaska, remembers her mother used to exclaim Stop wooling me!, a phrase used in parts of Appalachia, the Southeast US, and the Ozarks to mean “stop bothering me,” “stop roughhousing,” or “stop tussling.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Stop Wooling Me!”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Tabitha from Palmer, Alaska.
Hello, Tabitha. Welcome to the show.
Okay, well, my mom had a word she used when I was growing up, and I used the same word on my kids. And I thought everyone knew this word, but as an adult, when I used this word, I found that no one seemed to know what it meant. And that was the word wool as a verb, as in when the kid, the child would be sitting on your lap and squirming and just wearing you out with it, you would say, stop wooing me.
So tell us a little bit about the history of your family. Are you all from Palmer?
No, my mother is from southern Missouri around the Osage area, Ozark of Missouri. And the only other time I heard anything like that word is a friend from Indiana one time said to her kids, stop woollying me, which was very similar. But other than that, I’ve never heard anyone use it. And everybody I’ve asked is, I don’t know what this means. And my mom has passed away, so I can’t ask her.
-huh. So I was hoping maybe I could find a little family history here. -huh. Just to be clear, you’re saying W-O-O-L-I-N-G, right, Tabitha?
Yeah, that’s how I interpret it anyway.
Okay. -huh. Because it’s outwooling me.
Yeah, it sounds like W-O-O-L. So the verb would be to wool someone, W-O-O-L.
Yes. Well, I think Grant and I both had a light bulb go on when you talked about Missouri, because this is a term that you will hear, particularly in the South and South Midlands and Appalachia and the Ozarks, stop wooling me. And it has to do with, you know, roughhousing or tussling with or handling excessively, you know, like a dog with a toy or something. Is that your sense of it?
Yeah, because, you know, it’s when a child would be on your lap or something, especially if you had to keep them there for some reason, and they’re just restless and they’re wiggling and squirming and they’re just starting to wear you out with all that. And you just finally say, stop wooing me.
That’s interesting because a lot of times you’ll hear it applied to the child itself. You know, like that baby’s been wooed around so much today at the family reunion that she’s going to sleep really well tonight, wooing around.
The etymology is a little bit murky. Some people have suggested that maybe it comes from processing wool, you know, like picking at wool to get the little debris out. But it may well come from the idea of fleecing. You know, when you fleece somebody, you remove something valuable, like taking wool off a sheep and the idea sort of transferred from fleecing to stealing to tricking to just being annoying in some kind of way.
Oh, I see. Yeah. It’s annoying you with rolling around on your lap.
Yeah, because my mom would say it. She did sound annoyed. She did. Yeah. And this has got a, what, a century and a half of history or more, Martha? At least in print, probably older than that still.
Yes, yes, and it’s particularly associated with areas of Scott’s Irish settlement.
Okay, yeah, my mom, well, there was some Irish in the family. So that’s one of your linguistic heirlooms that nobody up there in Palmer understands but you, it sounds like.
I like that linguistic heirloom.
Yeah. Tabitha, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it, and good luck with all those woolen kids.
Thank you. Bye. Great. Take care. Call us with your linguistic heirlooms, 877-929-9673.
