Martha reminisces about her family’s mountain roots while dipping into the delicious vocabulary of Southernisms found in The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. When ya’ll listen to this one, you’ll find out what a “cackleberry” is — and why you don’t want to drink milk that’s “blinky.”
Listen here:
Download the MP3 here (2.4 MB).
You can read excerpts from The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English, and hear audio of Southern Appalachian speakers circa 1939 at Michael Montgomery’s site.
To see the log cabin where Martha’s dad was born, check out the photo on her blog.
This article in the Tennessee Alumnus by someone else from that region is also a lot of fun.