Homer in Kingsport, Tennessee, says that when Homer came in after curfew, his dad would say, “You guys have been out swarping, haven’t you?” Swarping is related to a variety of dialect terms in Scotland and Northern England that have to do with swiping, swapping, swinging, striking, and warping. With the insertion of an R, as can occur in certain dialect pronunciations, swipe or swap becomes swarp or sworp. A dress that moves in a swinging motion might be said to be swarpy. One can take a swarp with a rake by using a swinging motion. By extension, swarping can also mean getting into mischief or behaving in a boisterous manner. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Been Out Swarping or Sworping”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Well, hello. I’m Homer Markham. I’m in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Well, we’re glad to have you. What’s on your mind today?
I have often wondered what my father meant when he used the word swarp.
My brother and I, when we were in high school, would go out together in a family car and the curfew was at 11 o’clock.
If we came home a little after that, my father might say, you boys have been out swarping, haven’t you?
And we took that to mean that he thought we were into mischief.
And we might have been, but it was only minor mischief.
Well, Homer, if we’re talking about minor mischief, let’s define that first.
Well, that might mean a beer on a Saturday night.
Okay.
Without their permission.
And spell SWARP for us, as far as you know.
S-W-A-R-P, SWARP.
S-W-A-R-P, SWARP.
And it’s just a beer?
That’s SWARPing?
I always thought SWARPing was just a little more than that.
Maybe driving around, doing loops around downtown.
We didn’t have a car that would do loops.
It wasn’t a fancy car.
It was a family car.
But, yeah, we were out scoping out girls and might have had a beer or two.
We lived on the West Virginia border, and West Virginia was only a half mile away.
Over there, they sold beer, but not in Kentucky.
Yeah.
We would go over there and buy their 3.2% beer, and you couldn’t get in much trouble doing that.
Either that or spending all your time in the bathroom.
And you’d work for it.
But you could swarp, apparently.
Well, let’s talk about swarp.
So swarping sounds like having a little party, a little good time, but you’re not dropped down drunk or anything like that.
You’re not breaking the law so much as, well, not the kind of law breaking that would get you in jail.
We weren’t anywhere near that, but I think that’s probably what he meant by that.
He was a World War II military Marine, and I suppose a lot of mischief by his sons would have been called Swarpland.
He cut us a short leash.
Yeah, but he also knew to expect from young men, I imagine.
Yeah, I imagine he probably was speaking from experience.
It’s got an interesting history.
It relates to a variety of dialect words from Northern England and Scotland that have to do with swapping and swiping and maybe warping.
And they all have to do with this notion of sweeping or a swinging motion or a striking, moving erratically.
So just think about like you swipe at something, you’re moving back and forth.
Or maybe if you swap, it’s an exchange.
The reason it becomes swarp is because it’s a dialect pronunciation where people insert that R sound because of the way their mouths are shaped.
And it doesn’t necessarily belong there.
So swipe or swap becomes swarp.
Sometimes you’ll see it spelled S-W-O-R-P instead of S-W-A-R-P.
So people can be swarpy, which means prone to having fun or getting into trouble.
They can talk about swarping, which means having fun or getting in trouble.
But also we can just talk about things like a dress being swarpy, meaning swinging from side to side, or taking a swarp with a rake, which means taking a rake and swarping up the leaves and the rubbish in the yard, things like that.
So it’s an extension to this whole idea of moving from side to side.
And that has to do with when you have a little party, maybe you dance a little bit, maybe you’re a little tipsy, maybe you’re unsteady on your feet.
Maybe there’s just a lot of horseplay, right, a lot of boisterous roughhousing.
I’m sure that’s what he meant, but we weren’t guilty.
Oh, no, absolutely not.
Saints in training, no doubt.
Right.
Well, Homer, thank you for sharing your memories, and that’s what we know about SWARP.
Well, thanks a lot for your show.
I have a lot of fun listening to it.
And I’m learning a lot.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Our pleasure.
Call us again sometime.
Take care now.
Yes, sir.
You too.
Bye.
