Heritage Notes – Gomin’, Warsh, and Subtitles
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Today I’m proud to bring you Mama’s third installment of Heritage Hints and Notes. I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. We’d love to hear from you in the comments below and be sure to check out her other Heritage posts by clicking here. Gratefully, Christy
I come from a long line of proud, hard-working country people, and despite what you might see on television from time to time or hear about ever now and then, we country people are definitely not stupid or ignorant. My ancestors may have talked differently from others but they were soft spoken gentle people.
A while back, I happened upon a documentary on Appalachian people. I try not to call Christy when these are on because more often than not they subtitle folks as they talk and nothing gets her riled faster than seeing Southerners subtitled…
This particular documentary really stood out to me, though, because I recognized a lot of phrases used by my grandparents, phrases that I’m often corrected on nowadays because folks simply don’t understand them. As it turns out, the words make perfect sense (and always have), it’s just that they were somewhat foreig – what things were called in England and Scotland years earlier and passed down generation by generation.
A prime example is a phrase I’ve heard all of my life. My grandmother (Lela) always complained that we kids were “A messin’ and a gomin’ ”. I always wondered what “goming” was. A man on the documentary explained that goming was making a real mess or being messy. Brings to mind how we were always in the kitchen fixing us a snack and leaving a mess behind-“goming”.
My grandmother “toted stuff in a paper poke”. Translated that means carrying things in a paper sack. Times were hard and my grandmother carefully folded her used paper pokes to be reused whenever she got any. They were reused until they were soft and floppy. Unknowingly she was practicing saving the earth. Country folk recycled long before it was popular. Every now and then I toss a plastic throwaway container in the trash and I can’t help but pause to think of how my grandmother would have loved and cherished something as simple as a plastic container.
Country people rose with the dawn, worked the fields all day, raised all their own food, and preserved it to feed their families through the winter. They made every piece of clothing their family had and even recycled outgrown clothing into clothes for younger children or quilts to provide warmth on long winter nights. Nothing was wasted. Every scrap, thread, and piece of string was valued and saved.
I am often corrected for saying “warsh” instead of wash. Christy tells me that her kids have told her she is supposed to pronounce her father’s title “Da-dee” instead of “Deh-dee”. We aren’t supposed to say ain’t, pokes, “coo-pun” instead of q-pon and the likes. Often, I am torn between using what I know as proper grammar and holding on to the speech and values of my beloved ancestors. It feels as if I am turning my back on them if I change my ways. On the other hand, if I don’t I am perceived as backwards or uneducated. Many a Southerner (or folks from any region with a specific dialect for that matter) struggle with these same feelings.
From my ancestors, I have learned values, how to work hard, and integrity that no school could ever teach. Just like Northerners speak differently, so do I and I will continue to do so. I am proud to be from great loving hardworking stock. I can never turn my back on my heritage but I will try to tone down the “ain’t” at school assemblies for my grandkids as long as they’ll sit and listen to my stories of the people they come from – I figure that is a fair trade off. It is my hope to pass on the integrity with which my ancestors lived every day. I may sound more like them than future generations will, but I only hope I can be half the person that they were.
When asking my Mother what should I do in a sticky situation, she would answer…
“In your heart of hearts you already know the answer. You just have to listen to your heart.”
~Advice from Dawn Tierney’s mother that Dawn submitted on our Give a Penny Page.
Thanks for sharing that beautiful article from such a beautiful person. We can all learn a lot from her!
Love this story and being from North Carolina, I still talk that way and have to try not to say ain’t and other such things. I’m proud of my heritage also. My Mom still says “arn” for iron and other precious things. Thanks for such a wonderful article. Really lifted my confidence!
I remember well, when as a young bride, I came to Chicago from Tenn. I went to a small neighborhood store and asked for a quart of sweet milk. The clerk said he didn’t think they had that! And it puzzled him even more when I told him he didn’t have to put it in a sack. It still brings me a smile. But I do love the southern terms best.
I grew up on a sharecropper’s farm in Louisiana and am so familiar with all the things you say. Had not heard the “messin’ & gomin'” since my Mammaw used it a very long time ago. I am very proud of all the things we learned by living hard and working hard. My La. friend says the best thing she learned from the grandmother who raised her was to hang out her clothes and enjoy the smell! Enjoyed your article very much. Thanks for the memories!
Growing up in Tennessee I always heard the saying “dull as a fro” and we always wondered what the heck a “fro” was … it turns out it is a wedge shaped piece of iron that was used to split logs for building cabins and compared to an axe or a hatchet was certainly dull. — Loved the article!
I love being from the South, I love hearing our “language” and nothing is sweeter than hearing it come from the mouths of some sweet country Grandchildren.
Thank you so much for your writings-I think we should all embrace our heritage now matter where we are from.
I love being from the south. There’s nothing like it. My family has always used the terms “messing and goming” and I thought I knew what it meant because of the way it was used. Now I know for sure. My kids have often asked me and now I can tell them with assurance. I have wished now for years that I had written down all of my grandmothers’ old sayins but ever now and then, they just pop out of my mouth so I guess they “took” without me even knowing it.