OT---Forgotten Southern word?

Jiles · Dec 15, 2015

I am a 70 years old Southerner, and I talked with an "older then me" gentleman yesterday. He was describing a bad smell and used the word "cuarn". I have no idea how it is spelled but remember my older relatives using the phraise "smelled like cuarn", meaning it smell like ??????. Evidently, it was a bad smell.
I haven't heard that word in many years and had forgotten but I knew what he meant. LOL

Richard G. · Dec 15, 2015

If I remember correctly It means something that has been dead a while and stinks.
Richard in NW SC

Angle Iron · Dec 15, 2015

Maybe a spoiled butter churn, rotten milk smell.

RLA · Dec 15, 2015

Don't ask me how to spell it either, But we refer word to rotting Meat...

Tom in Ga · Dec 15, 2015

I remember my Mama using that word years ago. I have not heard it in years, but like Richard, I think it was supposed to be like something
dead and rotten. Tommy

JOCCO · Dec 15, 2015

Jiles can't help much with that but old saying around me was something died and crawled up in there!!!!

Sean Feeney · Dec 15, 2015

Found it
Kyarn

JK2 · Dec 15, 2015

Are you thinking of Carrion?
It is defined as dead and putrefying flesh.
Like what the buzzards like to eat.

LAA · Dec 15, 2015

''Carrion'' pronounced differently in different parts of the south, in Louisiana it sounds more
like ''kyarn''. I have people in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama and I have long noticed a lot of
words are pronounced different than we say them in Louisiana but at the same time we all know what
one another are talking about.

wilamayb · Dec 15, 2015

I've lived in TN all my life but I've never heard that one... That must be a deep south thing.

We do have our own lingo here. I grew up in middle TN and grew up knowing the garden hose as a "hose pipe". The term is used in Middle TN and northern AL. I have since learned that many Brits refer to them as hose pipes. The natives of the area are primarily Scotch/Irish so I guess it must have stuck from the motherland...

Jiles · Dec 15, 2015

(quoted from post at 21:35:55 12/15/15) I've lived in TN all my life but I've never heard that one... That must be a deep south thing.

We do have our own lingo here. I grew up in middle TN and grew up knowing the garden hose as a "hose pipe". The term is used in Middle TN and northern AL. I have since learned that many Brits refer to them as hose pipes. The natives of the area are primarily Scotch/Irish so I guess it must have stuck from the motherland...

Have you ever heard the word "poke" for sack or the word "hope" for help?
Also the word "plague" for embarrass.

Moonlite37 · Dec 15, 2015

Yes he JINED the church after he SWIPED gas from a TRACTOR
Just put these here TRACTOR parts in a POKE
He HET up the engine before he changed the oil in his TRACTOR
I CHAW BAKKR when I drive my TRACTOR
It was so muddy I almost BERRIED my TRACTOR
I can CYPHER gas out of as TRACTOR
I SPECK we need to put some EARL in that there TRACTOR

Frank Dodson · Dec 15, 2015

I haven't heard the word used either. I was raised about 16 miles west of Columbia in the community of Santa Fe. After grad school I got a job teaching in a west Tn college. The first time one of my colleagues heard me say hose pipe I was labeled a clod hopper. I have a friend who thougth I was kidding when I talked of a hill side plow.

01gentdc · Dec 15, 2015

we had some folx from burksville ky move in to care take the farm below us in 1967,..cloyd was old ky ,.. but his wife was from s Carolina,,. she used that term when referin to sox and dirty overalls and when ever we thruout the ancient jars of canned goods that were in the cellar ,,thw way she said it with her ky accent that was embossed with her deep south heritage twang was so neat ,,. us neighbor boys swould ask her to say it again and would trik her to say it as often as we could ,,. until she tired of us making sport of her speech and said we were all nuthin and beyond karyan ....

MichiganMike · Dec 15, 2015

Poke..."It's like buying a pig in a poke" S.E.KY roots...MTP

Dachshund · Dec 15, 2015

I always though it was (and heard it as) "holp" and "holpen" for helping.....

Adirondack case guy · Dec 15, 2015

It is a pretty common word around here. Spelled CARRION, and described as dead rotting flesh in the dictionary. 4 day old road kill, or a woodchuck that a hunter hung on a fence post with magots crawling out of the eyes.. (stinky and gross) Crows love it.
Loren, the Acg.

ditchwitch · Dec 15, 2015

Holly Molly thats gross LOL, YUK. But it does remind me of a funny story. A coworker of mine years ago told me that there old mule died and his dad went to bury it with a old backhoe. After the hole was dug and the mule was pushed in a hose blew on the backhoe. Took a few days to get the new hose but in the meantime 2 young boys were playing on the dirt pile and slipped and fell in on top of the old dead mule and the mule popped and they went thru it. Now he tells this story for the truth. But it about made me sick just thinking about it. LOL

ditchwitch · Dec 15, 2015

We always referred to the refrigerator as the ice box. Actually cant remember when i even stopped calling it that

wilamayb · Dec 15, 2015

I grew up not far from you in Shady Grove. There wasn't much between our stomping ground except Akin Ridge and Water Valley between us.. I went to college in a West TN town. It's a small world.

I think our friends to the north called the hillside plow by other names such as a "two way plow" or a "rollover plow".

scott2013 · Dec 15, 2015

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'bout rite....

Scott

Tom in TN · Dec 15, 2015

Hey Frank,

I live about 7 miles west of Spring Hill. I moved here 17 years ago and the locals laughed me to scorn when I pronounced Theta as Thayta instead of Theeta. Then, I made the nearly unforgivable mistake of pronouncing Santa Fe as Santa Fay instead of Santa Fee.

I love your natal territory.

Tom in TN

wolfman · Dec 15, 2015

How about "purt near" ? You're purt near done that field; or it's purt near time for lunch.

Jiles · Dec 15, 2015

(quoted from post at 04:10:39 12/16/15) How about "purt near" ? You're purt near done that field; or it's purt near time for lunch.

I had an old country friend from Tennessee that I was talking to about dogs.
He asked me if I ever had a Simonized Husky. I just laughed and said no.

Ozlander · Dec 15, 2015

(quoted from post at 18:41:47 12/15/15) We always referred to the refrigerator as the ice box. Actually cant remember when i even stopped calling it that

Still do if I don't think about it.

Gary Mitchell · Dec 15, 2015

Granny called it the "Fridgidare" and the sink the "zink." gm

Greg1959 · Dec 15, 2015

GM-"zink" was evolved from 'zinc" which was used to make 'sinks' LOL! That why we now call them "Sinks".

kub6040 · Dec 15, 2015

Not related to your word but a word that I have noticed
said very different in southern states is pecan , worked
in ga for a spell and they called them peecaanz some were
percaunz and no absolutely nerea pecon but a few peecau.
This is my hillbilly red neck learnin for tuedae hope sum
of ya learnt a smij from messin up words cause I still
make the same mistakes I did in 1rst grade. Lol.

Dave H (MI) · Dec 16, 2015

carrion?

OT---Forgotten Southern word?

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