Upscuddle, Upscuttle

Welcome to A Way with Words.

Well, hello. This is Bo. I’m calling from Carter County, Tennessee.

Nice. Pretty country there. Well, Bo, what’s on your mind today?

Well, I was wondering about the origin of a word that I heard many years ago.

And just recently, I was in a dollar store and heard a woman at the counter use that word.

And I didn’t see who it was.

And by the time I got up there to see if I even knew the woman, she was gone.

The word is upscuttle.

Upscuttle.

And what was she saying exactly?

Well, she was trying to use a, I think, debit card or credit card, and the machine was not reading it properly or some kind of technical problem involving her card.

And rather than cause a problem with a small line of people behind her, she just paid in cash and left.

And I never even saw the woman.

But hearing the word reminded me.

So she described the whole problem as an upscuttle?

Upscuttle.

It’s a really rare word, Bo.

That’s like seeing a jackalope in the wild.

Well, the only place I previously encountered it was a small valley in Tennessee, and it was used by the corrections officer at a maximum security prison there.

And it was used sort of verisively as describing a major altercation without fatalities.

Yeah, okay. That sounds exactly right. That’s the way that I’ve seen it.

Now, it’s in the Dictionary of American Regional English and the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English, and generally it’s defined exactly like a quarrel.

So we’re not talking about guns blazing.

We’re talking about maybe fists going and mouths running.

Well, that certainly involved fists and mouths going.

But it also includes stabbings.

That’s why I said no fatalities.

And it’s spelled UPSCU-DDLE or TTLE, typically, one or the other.

There are a couple fantastic quotes of it being used.

This one’s from 1913.

If they quarrel, it is a ruction, a ripet, a jower, or an upscuttle.

So there are no fatalities which would amount to a real fray.

I just love that quote.

I like that.

A ruction, a ripet, a jower, or an upscuttle.

All four of those words are just perfect.

I did trace it to Ireland.

Yeah, or Scotland.

There’s a word just scuttle without the up, which means to take part in a street fight.

And you can find this back to the late 1800s.

So, yeah, definitely is probably one of those remnants of the Scots-Irish settlement in the U.S. South.

Because it’s more of a southern word than anything else in the United States.

So, Bo, was this woman saying she was having an upscuttle with the credit card machine?

It was that she didn’t want to cause an upscuttle because the lawn was building behind her.

Yeah.

Got it.

Got it.

You know, I’m looking forward to hearing from our listeners about this one, Bo, because it’s rare enough out there that this is like, I don’t know, it’s like finding a pearl in an oyster.

Bo, I want to thank you for sharing your memories and your time with us.

Oh, thank you for having me on.

I love the show.

Oh, it’s our pleasure.

Call again sometime, all right?

All right.

Take care, Bo.

If there’s a language of upscuttle or ruction or a splutter in your life, let us sort it out, 877-929-9673.

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