April 23, 2015 (Thursday)
I suppose it’s a word I use a lot, but when I said it recently, I heard myself saying it, and I wondered where I got that word. How did it become a part of my vocabulary? What does it mean, exactly? What’s its origin.
The word? “Teenincey.” I was showing somebody a radar map with some small yellow dots and described them as “teenincey dots.”
If you are from the southern USA, you know I was saying the dots were very small. The thought occured to me: “Maybe it’s really a word.” So I looked it up, and the dictionary says, “No, it’s not a word.” I accidentally looked first at a scrabble rule page, and it’s not a valid scrabble word, either.
Sometimes folks say, “Teenincey little” or “little teenincey.” Redundant? I suppose so, but that’s the way some of us talk. Others just say, ‘teeniny.” Either way the southern dialect lets you describe a thing as less than tiny–betcha they cain’t do that up north.
I’m sure I’ve spoken the word many times, but this blog contains the first effort I’ve ever made in my entire life to write it. I’m not even sure I spelled it right, but I guess it can’t be right or wrong because it’s not a word. If not, then why do so many of us say it? And why do we say “micro” or “nano” when we already have a better word (even though the dictionary says we don’t).
This makes me think of expressions I used to hear when growing up. Kids had “play purties.” We were always “fixin’ to” do something (still are). We knew a guy that was “flat out” rude–didn’t have the “sense God gave a Jaybird.” Poor guy–“bless his heart.” Some folks got “stove up” instead of sore. Sometimes they were “swol’ up.” “Lordy, Lordy,” I love thinking about this stuff. “I swaney–” I thought everybody talked this way. You don’t? Well, “bless your little pea pickin’ heart.”