Diane in Frankfort, Kentucky, says her mother always pronounced the word wash with an R sound in it. This pronunciation of wash as “warsh” reflects what linguists call the intrusive R or excrescent R, a form of what’s known as epenthesis, or the...
A woman who relocated from the eastern United States to Evansville, Indiana, was confused when her mother-in-law there asked her to bring in some mangoes from the garden, since tropical fruits don’t grow in the Midwest. In that part of the country...
You’uns is a dialectal second-person plural meaning roughly “you and yours,” including family, household, or close companions. Angelina in western Montana heard it from longtime neighbors in northwest Arkansas after growing up with y’all in Dallas...
If someone’s a hoopie, it means they’re less than sophisticated. This term was used in the Ohio River Valley to refer to the bumpkins from West Virginia who performed menial work with barrels, hammering their hoops into place. This is part of a...
The Dictionary of American Regional English traces you-uns, a plural form of you, to the Midlands and the Ohio River Valley. But the expression goes back a while. Even Chaucer used something similar. Compare you’uns, yinz, and other plural second...
A former West Virginian reports that she grew up hearing a strange word: charny. In her part of the country, she says, it means “dirty” or “filthy,” and she always heard it pronounced “chee-YAR-nee.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...