“Vittles” a Victim of Fanciful Philologists

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Caroline calling from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hello, Caroline.

Hi, Caroline. What’s going on?

Well, I’m hoping that you can give me a little bit of a backstory on the word vittles. I’m sure it starts with a V. It sounds like it does, but I don’t know much about it.

It’s a word that my parents would say regarding food in sort of a joking manner. So when I was growing up, you know, after dinner, they might say, oh, those are some good vittles. The way they said it is like they were acknowledging that it was kind of a funny term or a colloquialism. But I don’t really know outside of the fact that they were referring to food what it really means or where it comes from.

Vittles, V-I-T-T-L-E-S.

Sure.

Sure.

You never saw it spelled, huh?

No, certainly not.

And are they from North Carolina as well?

Yes. And my family goes back in North Carolina. I mean, I think back to like the Revolutionary War. And so I always kind of wondered if it was something that came from kind of some old timey speak or to me, it always sounded a little Germanic. I don’t know if there’s something there, but I think there was a large German population who settled in the area. So I don’t know. Maybe I’m making that up in my own head.

Well, it’s a wonderful word with a wonderful history. I remember my Aunt Maiso from North Carolina talking about, do you want me to cook you up a mess of vittles? It goes back to Latin, actually. The word victualis, which means nourishment or sustenance. And victualis was adapted from an older Latin word that simply means to live. So it’s related to words like vitality and vitamin.

And then Latin victualis passed into French, but along the way it lost that hard C sound. So it sounded more like vitae. And that word for nourishment, without the hard C, found its way into English. And eventually, people spelled it vittle, V-I-T-T-L-E, because that’s sort of what it sounded like. It was spelled a lot of different ways when English was really irregular. And then in the 16th century, English scholars decided that this word for food should look more like the original Latin word. It should look more like victualis. And so they put the letter C back into it and started spelling it V-I-C-T-U-A-L. But the thing is that the old pronunciation was already so well established that people kept pronouncing it vittles anyway. So today you’ll see either the word vittle spelled V-I-T-T-L-E or V-I-T-T-L-E-S, vittles. And you’ll also see it spelled V-I-C-T-U-A-L-S, vittles. And you look it up in the dictionary and the pronunciation is vittles for both words.

So I’m not crazy for not having any clue what the spelling was.

No, not at all.

Okay.

But as you suggested, the word vittle spelled V-I-T-T-L-E, it’s a little more, I mean, like your parents used it. It’s a little bit, it sounds kind of rustic and some people use it in a playful way.

Interesting.

And I wonder why we don’t, I mean, you don’t hear it very often. It’s kind of an old fashioned word, it sounds like.

I mean, you wouldn’t hear anybody under, you know, under maybe 40 say it. And so I don’t know. I wonder kind of where it went.

Oh, I think it’s still out there. But it does, as Martha said, have that rustic, almost country feel to it. Words just kind of get stuck in their places, and they persist in those places and become attached to those places and aren’t widely used. That’s all. You’re just not going to hear that used in maybe the urban areas or among the most buffete groups of people.

Well, I won’t claim to socialize with the most elite groups, but I do live in a city and I’m going to do my best to bring it back.

Yeah, do that. We’re going to save vittles in every restaurant. Open a restaurant, make it the classiest place in town, and call it vittles.

Call it vittles.

Well, in Carolina, I’m going to offer you a strategy as well. There is a book by my dear friend, Ronnie Lundy, who lives outside Asheville. And she’s written this book called Vittles, An Appalachian Journey with Recipes. And it’s spelled V-I-C-T-U-A-L-S, vittles. And it’s a love letter to the cuisine and the folkways and the foodways and the history and language of Appalachia. It won not one but two James Beard Awards. So it’s this gorgeous book. And I think if you want to celebrate vittles, that’s a great way to do it.

I love that recommendation. Within North Carolina, my family goes back through Appalachia and outside of Asheville. So there you go. I’ll buy it for a few reasons.

Yeah, you got to get this book, Vittles by Ronnie Lundy. Caroline, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Thank you. That was really interesting. I appreciate it. Take care now.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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