Folk Speech of Pine Mountain, Kentucky

Abstract

Ct ° MANY articles have been written about the folk speech of the SouthJ ern Appalachians that it might seem as if no phrase peculiar to that region were left unnoted. But in the two summers which I spent recently at the Pine Mountain School in the hill region near the eastern edge of Kentucky, I heard some expressions which I have not found in any article on the speech of that area. I have listed these expressions, as well as a few that appear also in word lists from other parts of the Southern Appalachians. Wherever possible, I have mentioned different meanings of the word as given by other commentators on American Speech, by the il merican Dialect Dictionary (ADD), the English Dialect Dictionary (EDD), and the New English Dictionary (NED). The Dictionary of American English sheds little light on these particular expressions.