Joan grew up in Yorkshire, England, then moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. There she was surprised to hear some people use the term evening instead of afternoon to refer to “the period between noon and 5 p.m.” The word evening is used that way in many parts of the American South, and in fact, Mark Twain uses it that way in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Bookshop|Amazon). This sense is also used in the West Midlands of England. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Evening” Can Mean “Afternoon” in Parts of the American South”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Joan Bowie, and I’m calling from Oxford, Ohio.
Hello, Joan. Welcome to the show.
What can we do for you, Joan?
This has been in my head for over 50 years.
I was born and raised in the U.K., came to the U.S. in 1967, and my husband at the time went to Tulane in New Orleans for his master’s degree.
And I got a job at Tulane Medical School in the orthopedic department, answering the phones and whatever. All of the teaching staff, faculty, the doctors had private practices, and I would book appointments for them.
And one day I got this call from a man, a gentleman with a very unusual accent, and he asked me for an evening appointment.
And I said, “I’m sorry, we don’t have any evening appointments.”
And I don’t know if it was him. I think I may have had another similar call where the caller asked me, “Well, what are the office hours?”
And, you know, whatever they were, they were two to five or whatever. He said, “Well, that’s an evening appointment.”
So I found out—I think that was the way I found out—that anything after noon was evening.
And I just wondered how that came about, if it had anything to do with the French language, if you had any answers to that.
Well, Joan, you’ll find that evening is used in many places across the southern United States to mean exactly what you’re talking about, that period between midday and sunset, which is kind of weird if you’re not used to hearing it, like your story.
I know, and I’ve lived in Florida for a little bit, and nobody calling from the city of New Orleans ever said evening. I’ve never heard that before, only that once or twice, yes.
Interesting.
Well, you know, one of my favorite examples of using evening that way is in the book Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
At the very beginning of this book, Aunt Polly is talking about Tom Sawyer, and she says he’ll play hooky this evening.
She’s talking about how rambunctious and mischievous he is, and she says he’ll play hooky this evening.
And then Twain actually puts a footnote on that page that says that evening is southwestern for afternoon.
And I’m wondering, too, Joan, what part of England are you from?
Yorkshire.
Yorkshire. Okay. Because we do have records of the use of evening in this way in the U.K., particularly in the West Midlands, like Shropshire and Worcestershire.
In fact, there’s a wonderful glossary from Worcestershire where they have a citation where a woman is talking about an experience that she had with this word.
It quotes her saying, “A woman lately wished me good morning at 1:30 p.m., then having passed, turned back to apologize. ‘Good evening, ma’am,’ I should have said.”
And it was at 1:30 in the afternoon.
Oh, so it’s not that uncommon. And do you think it’s still relevant? Do you still think that’s in use now?
Grant, what do you think about that?
I’m not sure that it’s as common.
No, I think in the U.K. usage has faded. It would be incredibly rare.
I think in the United States it’s still around, but especially among the older folks.
I mean, folklore and language that was collected in the 1950s and ’60s in places like North Carolina and Kentucky shows that afternoon was hardly used or even known in parts of those states.
Or if people did know afternoon, it was considered not one of their words, just not a word that they would use.
They used evening for that time of day after the noon hour.
That’s really remarkable. I had no idea.
Well, you’ve answered my question. I just didn’t know if it was anything with them being Cajun and the French language.
No, it’s English going back to the 1500s.
Okay.
Many hundreds of years.
Thank you for answering my question.
Sure, Joan. Thanks for sharing that story.
Well, you’re welcome.
All right. Take care now.
Thank you. Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
So you moved to a new place, and you sound different than everyone around you. How are you dealing with that?
What’s different about your language versus theirs?
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