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W. L.. MCATEE
3 DAVIE CIRCLE
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
NOTE ON ACCOMPANYING LEAFLET^
gadafcing, though by me unapproved, feandi^aps wp&n ^tribu-
tim of esoteric (material, lead me i$> include with Uhe essay. "On
CiQ«Jpttqce^,,, supplements to certain prp/igm ppfcrs. M$$$m^ of
the present collection, not on the original lifts, sbtoJd not be in-
spired to request copies of the earlier articles, as all were in
strictly
limited editions, which were soon exhausted.
Though most of the writings cited went to individuals, copies
were sent also to leading libraries, where it is hoped .they have
been
preserved and may be consulted. Libraries listed as receiving
"Nomina Abitera", and the esoteric supplements to dialect papers
include those of:
Brown University, Providence,R. I.
University of California, Los Angeles.
University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.
Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Mew York Public Library, New York, N.Y.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
University of Wisconsin, Madison.
^iie University, New Havfen, Conn.
The Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
W. L. McATEE
1954
SUPPLEMENT 4 ON GRANT COUNTY,
INDIANA, DIALECT
By W. L. McAtee
Previous supplements, pertaining to the papers cited had the
number of pages indicated:
Rural Dialect of Grant County, Indiana, in the Nineties, 1942.
10pp.
Grant County, Indiana, Speech and Song, 1946: 1 (Folk Speech),
3 pp.; and 2 (Folk Verse), 6 pp.
Folk Speech
A lean hound for a long chase, saying, meaning a thin man for
con-
tinued fornication; indeed, consumptives were supposed to be
especially lecherous.
do it, phr., copulate. Any of them will do it when the right bull
gets in the pasture.
breast-works, n., the female bosom.
cut a switch, phr. In horse-and-buggy days, a man taken short or
pressed to urinate, might exclaim, "I've got to cut a switch",
stop, stride off in the undergrowth, and relieve himself. A
woman, if hard put to it, might herself sometime say, "Women
have to cut switches too."
diarrhea. Descriptive term, "I've been squitterin' and squtterin\"
finger-fuck, v., masturbate a woman.
hell, n., extreme degree. "He's 'hell after women".
horn, n., (penis*) The older the buck the stiffer the horn"—an
aphorism for which this writer has seen no illustration.
If the dog hadn't stopped to shit he might a-caught the rabbit
listen to reason, phr. Said of a woman receptive to proposals for
intercourse; "She's willin' to listen to reason."
mad-dog. In the juvenile challenge: "Spell mad-dog backwards."
masturbation. To discourage this boyhood practice in those days,
the warning was that the loss of each drop of semen (we
said gism) was equal to that much heart's blood. That sounded
rather serious then but would not greatly impress the present
generation, accustomed to .hearing of pints of blood being
taken for transfusions.
onry as cat-piss, simile, very ornery, incorrigible.
pee-hole, n., the slit, with underlying flap, in boys' breeches,
which
was the precursor of the fly in trousers for grown-ups.
promised land, n., destination of earn. cop. The last line of a
hymn
parody (of which I do not recall the remainder) was "slide
right over in the promised land."
scare rats away, phr. 'Til put your picture up in the privy to
scare
the rats away", was a standard insult.
skin the prick: v. phr., retract the prepuce of the penis,
exposing
the glans. This evidence of maturity was sought by small boys
in various ways, some sadistic, as by treating the organ with
tobacco juice or even focussing a burning glass on the retarding
fold of the prepuce.
stick up one's ass, phr. Of something desired but unobtainable,
coveted, but refused, or as a gratuitous insult. "Tell him to
•stick «his old job up his ass." "You can stick that up your ass."
• suck tmy ass (balls, cock), phr., nasty retorts.
Three spans from the chin is the place to put it in. Repeated
here
here to correct a typographical error in the 1946 Supplement 2.
A saying persisting from pioneer times.
tickle her tail, phr., covered anything from titillation to
copulation.
"She'll get he tail tickled now."
work ass off, phr., work hard, make a great effort. "I ain't
a-goin'
to work my ass off for him."
wrinkle, n. One of the labia of the female pudendum. "His little
dink wouldn't get past the first wrinkle."
Folk Verse
Jesus, lover of my soul
Hang me on a hickory pole.
When the pole begins to bend
Put me on the other end.
If the pole begins to break
Take me down for Jesus' sake.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7;
All good children go to heaven;
When they get there, they will yell,
"All the rest can go to hell."
Diddle, ma diddle, ma dum dee;
The cat ran up the plum tree;
He ran so fast he skinned his ass;
Diddle, ma diddle, ma dum dee.
My girl lives in Baltimore;
Street cars run right by the door,
Brussels carpets on the floor,
Chippy, get your hair cut pompadour.
(Charles E. Rush)
Some people die of whiskey;
Some people die of beer;
Some people diabetes,
And others diarrhea.
But of all the damned diseases
That I've ever had or seen,
The worst, by God!
Is the drop, drop, drop
Of the god-damned gonorrhea.
There was a bawdy ditty about spurting gravy in baby's face,
which I can not further recall. The underset has been invented to
give the general idea; it embodies the unique concept of dialect
being spoken by a foetus.
Putting his thing into the place,
Pa spurted gravy in baby's face.
Said baby, "Pa, you'd best take keer
Or I'll get you in 'bout twenty year."
Privately printed 1954—W. L. McAtee
VERBAL MISCELLANY
By W. L. McAtee
Special vocabularies will be needed as long as dictionaries,
avoid
the so-called "obscene", which so often is connected with the most
indispensable feature of human life, that is, reproduction, and
which
otherwise is of interest to more potential readers than is any com-
parable fraction of the words to which they restrict themselves.
None of the terms in the senses indicated below are in the Oxford
English Dictionary or the New International Dictionary except
"pecker" and that not in its original genital significance.
bollock: v. The noun, when it gets into print, is usually ballock;
but folk pronounciation of k is apt to be more like that of
the verb cited. The noun is employed almost exclusively in
the plural, and where I grew up (Grant County, Indiana),
was pronounced bollux, and was one of several words ending
in an "x"( or if you prefer "cks") sound, almost all of which
had derogatory or evil significance.
Now as to the verb "bollock," we read in the work of a
French traveller (1786, commenting on American manners:
in their combats, unless specially precluded, they are admitted
"to bite, b-ll-ck, and goudge." (F. J. Ghasteliux, Travels in
North America, translated by George Grieve, 1787: 192-193).
What bollocking was, is more explicitly revealed in a
book by C. W. Janson (Stranger in America, 1807:304), as
follows i "But what is worse than all, these wretches in their
combat endeavour to their utmost to tear out each other's
testicles. Four or five instances came within my own observa-
tion, as I passed through Maryland and Virginia, of men 'being
confined in «their beds from injuries which they had received
of this nature in a fight. In the Carolinas and Georgia, I have
befcn credibly assured, that the people are still more depraved
in this respect than in Virginia." That this mode of fighting
has a long history is shown by a passage in Deuteronomy. "He
that is wounded in the stones, or hath his private member cut
off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord" (xxiii :-
1}, And further that the women mixed up in it. "When men
strive together one with another, and the wife of the one
draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of
him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh
hiiia by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine
eye shall not pity her." (xxv: 11-12). [These examples were
turned over to me by Dr. M. M. Matthews, he knowing full
well they could not make the pages of the Dictionary of
Americanisms.]
bull-prick: n., A Burley bar for making holes in soft earth,
Colo-
rado. R. V. Minges.
come: v. In supplement 1 (Grant County, Indiana, Speech and
Song, 1946: 1), I commented on the use of this verb as mean-
ing to experience sexual orgasm. An additional instance is in
the tale of a woman whose partner died in the act. Said she
in describing the circumstance:" I thought he was a-comin'
but it seems he was a-goin7,
copronymus: n., name of a turd. Because he compelled monks
and nuns to marry, this endearing epithet was applied to the
Byzantine Emperor, Constantine V (740-775 A.D.)
dill-berry, dingle-berry, n., ball of feces adhering to hair
about the
human anus; the first from Alabama (E. G. Holt) and the
second from Wisconsin (H. L. Stoddard). It is almost in-
conceivable that any people have been so filthy "in our time",
but the still living witnesses are unimpeachable.
dress: v. Direct the genitalia into one of the trouser legs
"Right,
or left dress ?" was a question put to me by a .tailor as he was
measuring me, c. 1904, in Bloomington, Indiana.
grass: v., to copulate, of humans. "Not much is said about wiho
is
grassing whom." Clarence M. Webster (Town Meeting Coun-
try, 1945: 239)." That meant putting on the grass* or in an
expression of an earlier day, giving a green gown. The tell-
tale stains have served as giveaways at many a picnic or camp
meeting. Let us now sing the Doxology.
high-life: n. Carbon bisulphide as put into the fundament of a
horse to make it "buck" at a rodeo. Called also a hokey-pokey,
rousm' oil, and squat-drops; the first two in Wyoming; the
last two in Arkansas. Confer: "feague" in Francis Grose's
"A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1785, p. 61) ;
and "turpentine" in my supplement to "Rural Dialect of Grant
County, Indiana, in the Nineties" (1942, p. 10.) How we de-
part from the teaching of Buddha, "Be kind to all that lives."
knackers: n., testicles, Scotland, J. R. Mallooh.
lead in your pencil/' "This will put; saying about food or drink
of
supposed aphrodisaic effect.
lubricate: v., "last night I met with a monstrous big whore in
the
Strand, whom I had a great curiosity to lubricate, as the saying
is." James Boswell, London Journal, April 13, 1763.
pecker: n., spirits, courage. J his meaning, so different from
the
ordinary American colloqualism for penis, was unknown to
me at a time when I heard in the home of Albert Mann (dia-
tomist, 1853-1935), and in the presence of his wife, the saying,
"Keep your pecker up", and was correspondingly "paralyzed."
Dr. Mann afterward explained that it was a familiar Scotch
expression.
prag: v., copulate, Scotland, J. R. Malloch; not surprising as
the
dictionary admits prag: n., meaning pin, and prag; v., mean-
ing cram.
prod: n., penis, same place and authority.
well-hung: adj. Of a male with notably large genitalia.
yucky: adj., highly pleasurable as in sexual intercourse, about
ready
to "go off." "Is it yucky yet?" Scotland, J. R. Malloch.
Similes and Proverbial Sayings
Said the old maid after a week of married life, 'Tm sore but
satisfied."
A happy drunk and a bawdied cunt both look bad but are feeling
fine.
A stiff prick 'has no conscience.
Dry as an old maid's nipple.
Tom Jones would fuck anything that was hot and hollow.
[All of these from F. E. L. Beal of Lunenberg, Massachusetts.]
Cold as the love of an elderly whore.
[From Ned Hollister of Delavan, Wisconsin.]
Every man is born between piss and dung.
[A. K. Fisher of Sing-Sing, New York.]
Sweating like a June Bride.
Sweating like a nigger at a love-feast.
[Heard at Washington, D. C, so probably of Maryland origin.]
The older.the buck the stiffer the horn.
General. [Though widely distributed, this aphorism would
seem but infrequently verified in real life.]
An extemporaneous piece of wit that deserves to go with these
time-proved bon mots, was evoked by the very bustiferous appear-
ance of a small woman in a burlesque show. Said my friend, Philip
F. Allan, "That's the first time I ever saw a bushel of anything in
a peck measure."
Privately printed 1954—W. L. McAtee
