Twice-told Tale Column
By Dean Campbell

While conducting my “The Dark Corner – An Elusive to Exclusive Odyssey” class in Furman University’s OLLI Lifelong Learning curriculum, my way of speaking often
employs familiar words and expressions that have been a part of me since first learning to speak.

They have been heard and spoken over and over in the telling and retelling of many twice-told tales of the region. So familiar are they that, even though English and
speech were my major studies in earning a B.A. degree, my thoughts still employ utterances that go back to Middle English (and a few Gaelic) roots.

For instance, my maternal grandmother, Ollie Center Plumley never once said the word, “help” when offering her assistance to someone in need. “I will be glad to
‘holpe’ you,” she would say, in probably the same inflection that her ancestors did in Chaucer’s time.

“Shet the door, son, it’s gittin’ a bit ‘airish’ (breezy or drafty),” she would admonish me. “It’s ‘nigh on’ (nearly) suppertime and you need to warsh your hands.”
“I’m looking and feeling sorta ‘peak-ed’ (pale or sickly) this morning, but I’ve got to ‘wrench’ (rinse) out a few pieces,” she would often say.

Her husband, Morris, might need a piece of canvas to ‘kiver’ (cover) a stack of wood that needed to be kept dry, but “I ain’t got ‘nairn’ (none),” he would say.

His children and older grandchildren loved him dearly, but they all felt that he was ‘sot in his ways’ (had his own peculiar ideas of how things should be done and
wouldn’t change his mind readily).

After a hard day’s work, he would put tools in their proper place, sit down in his favorite straight, ladder-back chair, and say, “I’m ‘plumb’ (completely) wore out.”
(When I was very young, I thought ‘plumb’ had something to do with his last name.)

Other quaint words and expressions, not all of which derive from Middle English, that have endured in these Dark Corner hills include:
‘Biggety’- (acting bigger than you are; stuck up) “She’s gitting a little ‘biggety’, ain’t she?”
‘Ficety’- (sassy; full of airs) “She’s a comely girl, but she’s ‘ficety’.”
‘Hern’- (hers) “That parasol must be ‘hern’.”
‘Laying off’ – (postponing) “I’ve been ‘laying off’ to get a new shed built.”
‘Right smart’ – (a considerable amount) “I’ve been waiting here a ‘right smart’ while.”
‘Smack dab’ – (point blank) “I hit him ‘smack dab’ on the jaw.”
‘Warrant’ – (wasn’t) “He ‘warrant’ no account anyhow.”
‘Yourn’ – (yours) “In that quarter horse ‘yourn’?”

Correction: In the recent Block House…a major stopover for drovers tale, the president of Converse College was misidentified. He was Oliver Carmichael, not
Oliver Campbell as stated.