When David from Warren County, Indiana, visited relatives in Virginia, he heard about an inebriated man who was said to have entered a church and caused a ruckus while sworpin’ down the aisle. In Appalachia, the verb sworp, also spelled swarp, means “to move in a sweeping or staggering fashion.” David’s grandmother also described a perilous trip down an icy mountain road this way: We were just a-slidin’ and a-sworpin’ all the way down. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “To Sworp”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is David Baker. I’m calling from Seeger High School in rural Warren County, Indiana.
Well, welcome to the show, David. We are glad to have you. What’s up?
I was attending a funeral for my grandmother in February, and my family all, I’ve known them, I’m almost 50, and I’ve known them for so long.
And they’ve used a lot of terms, but there was a term they used, and I’ve never heard it before, and I’ve never heard it anywhere else.
And I’m very curious if you can tell me about it, anything else about it.
The story was being told about that we’re celebrating my grandmother’s life and telling stories.
And a gentleman in the story early on had walked into a church service and was being disruptive.
The term they used was he said he was swarping down the aisle.
Apparently he had been drinking and was causing a ruckus.
And the word SWORP, S-W-O-R-P, I-N-G, the G is optional, SWORP and down the aisle.
And I just never heard it before and wondered if there was any kind of context you could help me with.
Yeah, sure. Was this in Indiana?
No, this was in Virginia.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense because SWARP, spelled either S-W-O-R-P or S-W-A-R-P, is something you usually hear in the Appalachians.
So I’m really interested to hear that you heard it in exactly the way that I’ve read about but never heard in the wild.
It comes from an old dialect term that means to strike or hit.
And so you might talk about walking through a forest and brush swarping you in the face or something like that.
And it can also be used to mean to move something in a sweeping motion, like whisking a biscuit through some honey or something on a plate.
Or, you know, somebody’s dress was swarping the floor.
It also means, besides to move in sort of a wriggling or staggering, weaving kind of way,
It’s sometimes used specifically to refer to somebody who’s under the influence of alcohol
And engaging in noisy behavior where their arms are all flapping around or their legs are, something like that.
So that makes perfect sense that this person was, what was he, swarping down the aisle?
Swarping down the aisle.
And she also used it.
They told the story and specifically quoted my grandmother saying they were driving down a mountain at one point in the winter.
It was very icy.
She said we were just a sliding and a swarping all down the mountain.
I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, that fits perfectly with the idea of swarping, meaning to move erratically.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, that’s fantastic.
Oh, thank you so much.
That’s amazing.
I appreciate that.
All right.
Take care, David.
