Mirror of the Soul
Sometime back I made reference to knowing the difference between a conniption fit and a hissy fit and it seems that most people believed them to be the same thing. Not true! A conniption fit is very serious while a hissy fit is nothing to get excited over. I understand both but I wasn’t sure I knew how to clearly define each so I turned to a reference book about the origins of words and phrases.
The word conniption comes from an English dialect word canapshus, meaning ill-tempered. Conniption is defined as a fit of rage or anger. A person can go into a conniption, have a conniption fit or have a fit of conniptions, all meaning the same. Such a fit was first recorded in writing in 1833 with: “Aunt Keziah fell down in a conniption fit.”
The hissy fit is a mere expression of your disapproval or contempt for a situation. Hissing was first recorded in the review of a play in 1602. The author, Charles Lamb observed his first play hissed off the stage and was so embarrassed that he joined in the hissing so that no one would recognize him as the playwright.
He must never have forgotten the experience because years later he was delivering a lecture and someone in the audience let forth with a loud hiss. After a brief pause, Mr. Lamb in a level voice said: “There are only three things that hiss, a goose, a snake and a fool. Come forth and be identified.”
Other phrases nearly lost to everyday speech would include, “By and by” means before long or in a little while. To those who question how many a “mess of fish” is, it is a great number or a large amount. The word mess applies to lots of things. A mess of folks, She picked a mess of beans to can, he just came through here drivin a mess of cows, when she married that feller, she walked into a mess of dough.
Anyone reading this column that already knew the correct definitions of all these words has probably always lived in Benton County or somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. And if you know the general direction of catty-wampus, I know you’re a native. Anti-gogglin and catty-wampus is the same as catty-strangling. The latter term was actually found as a direction in an ancient Ozark deed. A town lot was described as “catty-strangling across” from another property. The words actually mean diagonal or diagonally.
But never jump to hasty conclusions and assume that two similar sounding things mean the same. For instance, whippoorwill winter and blackberry winter are two entirely different times. Blackberry winter is a cold spell in late May or early June when the blackberries are blooming. While a whippoorwill winter is a cold April rain with considerable wind. Grandpa used to say: “When you hear a whippoorwill holler in April, you had better begin packin in extra wood.”
And speaking of grandpa, he had a term that I have never heard used by another human and that was “Gabriel’s Hounds.” Gabriel’s Hounds are wild geese in flight and to him they sounded like a pack of hounds in full cry. He said that was what his old grandpa Jake called them.
So many of the old words and phrases lose something in the translation. Vance Randolph explained it best in his book on Ozark dialect, “Down in the Holler.” He told, how in Taney County, a big hillman from Sowcoon Mountain came down to a community dance hall in search of feminine companionship. It happened the place was full of high school girls that were scrawny and immature. “Shucks,” said the hillman disgustedly, “the top waters is a shoalin but there ain’t a hoss in sight.” The local people roared with laughter, but a city fellow who was present could make nothing of it. He questioned what all the people were laughing about.
But how could they tell him? It’s no use to explain that a topwater is a small worthless minnow, and a hoss is a highly prized fish, while shoaling is a frenzied sexual activity preliminary to spawning. These are the facts but facts are not funny.
Unless a man has actually seen topwaters and red-horse a-shoalin, he can never fully appreciate the Sowcoon Mountain wisecrack.
The colloquialisms that has long made our region unique are disappearing fast. The speech has become like our bread that is mixed and baked and then prepackaged so that it is all uniform with no chance for individual flavor. This is how our language has become, it is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless. Never too much salt or too much yeast, just perfectly flat and tasteless. And what a shame for that loss because speech is such a mirror of the soul.
