Folks who move up here from off the mountain usually notice the talk before anything else. Some of it sounds old-fashioned, and some of it sounds made up. It isn’t either one. A lot of these words came over with the Scots-Irish, English and German families who settled these hills, and they stuck around because the mountains kept people close to home for a long time.
Here are twelve you can still hear in Ashe County if you sit long enough at a country store or a church dinner.
- Airish (AIR-ish): chilly or breezy. “Grab a jacket, it’s airish out.”
- A-fixin’ (uh-FIX-in): getting ready to. “I’m a-fixin’ to go to town.”
- Directly (die-RECK-lee): in a little while. “I’ll be there directly” can mean five minutes or an hour.
- Antigodlin (an-tee-GOD-lin): crooked, out of square. “That picture’s hanging antigodlin.”
- Britches (BRITCH-ez): pants. “Too big for your britches” means getting above yourself.
- Beholden (bee-HOLE-den): owing somebody a kindness. Mountain folks don’t like to stay beholden long.
- Allow (uh-LOW): to suppose or say. “He allowed it might snow.”
- Cipher (SY-fer): to do figures. “Let me cipher on that a minute.”
- Counterpane (COUN-ter-pane): a bedspread or quilt.
- Poke: a paper sack. You might carry your groceries home in a poke.
- Reckon: to think or guess. “I reckon so.”
- Holler: a narrow valley between two ridges, and the word this whole site is named for.
How many did you grow up hearing? Tell me in the comments, and tell me the ones I left out. Every family seems to have a few of its own.
If you want more, I’ve gathered over a hundred mountain words in The Holler Handbook: A Dictionary of Appalachian Language, and 326 words plus 287 sayings in the Pocket Dictionary ebook. You can also get a free printable sampler of twelve words.
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