Swear Words, Taboo Words, Euphemisms: by Mark McCutcheon

[Becky Morgan]

Looks like he was just abbreviating. Look at all the Cols and Genls and N. Orleans.

[gilham]

No basis for this
Could the c be for c0ckhead
just a guess and speculation

[Mudslinger]

I particularly like Craig's article on Appalachian Speech, which Paul posted last year. One Appalachian term is missing though, which derives it history from Western Virginia & Tennessee during the 19th century, and is still used today..."SHIVAREE!!!"

The "Shivaree" was a 19th and early 20th century Appalachian custom (originally dating back to sixteenth-century France) of teasing a married couple on their wedding night or shortly thereafter. The bride was carried around in a tub at times, and the groom was ridden on a rail. In Tennessee the custom was more commonly called “serenading”, and in western Virginia the term “belling” also referred to this raucous, spontaneous celebration.


"One of the things that people really looked forward to was when a couple got married, they would have what they called shivaree. Everybody that was going to take part in it, they would slip right easy, and nobody would know they was anywhere about until the guns went to shootin'.

They would just march around the house shooting guns one right after another. When they would go so many rounds around the house shooting their guns, and then they would go to the door and stick a fence rail through the door and the man would get on the rail and they would ride him around the house on the rail or down the road.

Sometimes the women would join in and push the man's wife in a tub and carry her. I was shivareed. They put me on a rail and rode me around, and I fell off of it and I just got up and went in the house and told them that was all the riding on a rail I was going to do."
Oral Page, Monroe County, KY


Rosa Walden, a Pi Beta Phi Settlement School (Gatlinburg, TN) teacher, and Tacoma, Washington native Ruth Sturley participated in a serenade in September 1919, and described the event in a letter to her family:

“One of my girls Flora Reagan has a sister who was married . . . and the young people got up the affair in their honor. Abbie [Runyan], Evelyn [Bishop] and I went with three of the school girls and a dozen more youths. Lillard Maples took us girls in his Ford three miles up to the Forks of the river [to the newlyweds’ home]. . . .

We stopped and assembling our forces proceeded to march round and round shouting--blowing ox horns--ring cow bells--sheep bells and I know not what. My noise was produced by clapping together two tin pan covers--then some sticks of dynamite were set off--by this time strange to say the cabin was astir.”




sources:

Lynwood Montell,Monroe County Folklife , Ed. Monroe County, KY: privately published, 1975. p 72

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/alb...2.html#wedding

http://www.lib.utk.edu/arrowmont/Ste...%20Culture.pdf



_________________________

Nick Miller
33rd O.V.I., Co. F
Mudslinger Mess
Acorn Boys

[Secesh]

Ahh yes...I fondly recall the sticks of dynamite that were set off at my wedding...lol

[Hank Trent]

I particularly like Craig's article on Appalachian Speech, which Paul posted last year. One Appalachian term is missing though, which derives it history from Western Virginia & Tennessee during the 19th century, and is still used today..."SHIVAREE!!!"

That brings back memories. My wife and I were married at a reenactment in West Virginia, and everyone knew a chivaree was coming that night. I don't think anyone told anyone, it was just assumed. After dark, I told her I'd better head down to the sinks and get that over with so I'd be sure to be back at our tent in time for it.

Coming out of the sinks in the dark, I ran into a group of men clustered around the water source with tin plates, cups, spoons, etc. The leader was saying, "Now we have to be careful, because he's smarter than the average person..."

Oh no! I'd walked right into the chivaree gang, unintentionally. I tried to walk by without them spotting me in the dark, but one did. Suddenly, they began rinsing off their plates and cups. "We're all just doing the dishes together here! Nice evening, huh?"

I went on back to our tent, and after a while, big surprise, the chivaree gang came, banging plates and spoons.

But anyway, yes, shivaree/chivaree is a good one.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[paulcalloway]

Apparently this work is not actually by Craig Hadley.

It appears verbatim in a book, "The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s" by Mark McCutcheon, Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 1993.

[Private Glover]

My understanding is that the 'F' word didn't make to American shores until the two world wars. I'd heard that the GIs picked it up from the Tommys and brought it back. Can anyone give a definitive primary source for its use in the 19th century?