Who Wants to Stay Home?

Today we attended another luncheon program, this one at the History Museum of Carteret County in Morehead City.  We recognized one of the attendees as someone we had seen at a Friends of Fort Macon Lunch last week.  "Who wants to stay home?" she laughed.

The lunch was catered (lasagna) and the speaker was Rodney Kemp, whom we happened to hear give a funny children's sermon at the Methodist Church a few weeks ago.  Rodney is something of a celebrity in Carteret County, a former teacher and a lively story-teller who claims he is "the last of Morehead City's fish-house liars."  His talk was on the unique Carolina Brogue in this part of the State (see post of January 14), which is especially strong on Harker's Island and Sea Level.

I already knew a little about the Brogue from watching a DVD I had gotten from the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center last year.  Rodney was familiar with the DVD and knew the man who had made it, and his talk was made even more interesting by several folks in the audience who grew up with the peculiar expressions and pronunciations found here, which they shared with us.

For nearly an hour, Rodney laughed and entertained us, but behind it all was a genuine fascination with and knowledge of language.  He loved trying to discover what "mommicked" meant, and what a "scrape" was, and he had interviewed enough old timers to get a fairly good idea where some of the terms originated.   He interspersed his survey of these interesting expressions with funny stories, such as the woman who had told him how hot it was:  "I've only been this hot twice before in my life, and both of them were today."

Martha and I already knew that we were "From Off" - that is, that we did not live here - but we also learned the fine distinction between "Dit-Dots" and "Ding-batters."  Dit-Dots were just visitors, and he theorized that this expression came from northerners who served here in World War II at the local army base and used Morse Code - thus "dit-dots."  Ding-batters had moved here and now lived here permanently.

Some other interesting expressions:

• "Toward evening the sun peared to pert near fetch up.
• "Hotter than the hinges of hell."
• "Worst I've ever laid eyes at." (instead of "on")
• “Cold as the night the Crissie Wright came ashore." (a famed shipwreck on a bitterly cold night)

We "soight for a spell of toime" and listened to story after story.  He mentioned two expressions that I found especially interesting.  One was "I swannee" (instead of "I swear").  After the program, I told him that this was an expression common in some parts of Western North Carolina.  He said that he had also heard that because he had lectured at Western Carolina University.

The other expression he told us about was "gap" instead of "yawn."  It turns out that my Mom, who grew up in Eastern North Carolina not far from here (Roanoke Rapids) before meeting my Dad and moving to Connecticut, used to say that all the time, and I had never heard anyone else say it.  "I'm gapping my fool head off," she would say, and laugh.  It is nice to think that some of the language from this part of the world still lingers in me through my Mom.

Rodney concluded his talk with an old sailor's poem that he often uses to end lectures, and so I will use it to end this post:

It's not my place to run the ship,

The horn I cannot blow.

It's not my place

To say how far

The Ship's allowed to go.

It's not my place

To chart the course,

Nor even toll the bell.

But let the damn thing

Start to sink 

And see who catches hell.