In East Tennessee, if someone invites you to a “fire,” don’t be alarmed—there’s a chance they’re talking about a fair. A former Floridian who moved to that part of the country has been collecting some funny stories about...
A hootenanny, commonly thought of as a party in Appalachia, is also a term for German pancakes. But when you look in the Dictionary of American Regional English, you’ll notice that hootenanny is synonymous with doohickey or thingamajig, and...
To sip a mint julep on the veranda of an evening may be a distinctly Southern activity, but the phrases “of an evening” or “of a morning,” meaning “in the evening” or “in the morning,” go back at least...
The term Melungeon, applied to a group of people in Southeastern Appalachia marked by swarthy skin and dark eyes, has been used disparagingly in the past. But Melungeons themselves reclaimed that name in the 1960s. The Melungeon Heritage website...
Cyarn and kyarn are spellings for a Southern and Appalachian pronunciation of carrion, the rotting flesh of a dead animal. Kenny from Barnesville, Georgia, heard his mother use it for roadkill dragged into the yard by a dog and also more broadly for...
Is Hoosier a derogatory term? People from Indiana proudly embrace it, but in the dialect island that is the St. Louis area, the word means someone who is uncouth or uncultured. In Southern Appalachia, the related words hoodger, and hoojer still...