Wordcraft Community Home Page
Regionalisms

This topic can be found at:
https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/332607094/m/7600048366

June 07, 2013, 20:50
Kalleh
Regionalisms
Shu came across the word vum in a poem, which evidently is a regionalism from New England that is used to express surprise, as in, "Well I vum!" or "I'll be vummed!" Have you heard it?

The site above then mentioned another regionalism from the south being swan or swanny to mean "swear." That is used as "Now I swanny..."

I hadn't heard of any of these, have you? Do you have some others?
June 07, 2013, 21:27
BobHale
Never heard either of them.


"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
June 08, 2013, 06:37
<Proofreader>
I've been here in NE for some time and have never heard that term.

I have heard the southern expression as swarn, with more of an "r" than if it was "swan".
June 08, 2013, 08:14
goofy
It's an alteration of vow according to the OED.

swan is "probably northern English dialect I s' wan lit. ‘I shall warrant’ = I'll be bound; later taken as a mincing substitute for swear v."
June 08, 2013, 21:06
Kalleh
Each of these poems has the word vum:

Wonderful One-Hoss Shay
and

Darius Greene and His Flying Machine