Transcript of “Bring Your Mop for a Whang”
Here’s a fantastic word that I am going to be sure to use at least when springtime comes and that word is huang w-h-a-n-g. Do you know is that naughty? That sounds naughty. It does sound kind of naughty. There is a version of it though that was used in New England and mostly Maine around the turn of the last century to mean a house cleaning party. You would invite your neighbors to a huang and they would help you clean up your house.
How does that work? What do they get in return? I guess they come over to your house another day? Yeah, yeah. I think it’s like a barn raising or something, but I would love to, I don’t know if my friends would like it, to invite people to a huang.
I came across this article in the New York Times from 1888, and it talks about a woman who issued cards for an afternoon party at her home, terming it a huang. And it says, a huang is a house cleaning party, and some of the ladies are sorry that they didn’t dress accordingly.
Apparently not everybody in that area of Maine knew that term, but it’s in the Dictionary of American Regional English. That would be one way to go to the party, but oh, I wore my nice clothes. I can’t really help with the oven.
See ya.
