I grew up in Iowa and, while I wasn’t exactly left to fend for myself in a cornfield, no one paid very much attention to me. (That probably had a lot to do with why I turned out to be an underemployed show-off on WFMU.) Mostly I was brought up by my Grammy Carlton, who was a very old-fashioned country woman. I got all my ideas of manners and proper behavior from her.
One thing my Grammy taught me was how to bake. I learned that any kind of homemade baked goods were much, much better than those dried-out packaged things you got at the store. Whenever guests came, we produced a hot coffee cake, or a fresh-baked pie, or something like that to serve to them along with the nasty, watery, percolated Midwestern coffee that everyone drank.
When I first came to New York, I rented a room with a private bath inside an enormous old apartment in the fancy part of north Park Slope. One day an acquaintance from my college came to visit me there, and I fixed some tea and put some little snacks out on a plate. As I brought the food to her, I said, “I’m sorry I only have boughten cookies,” meaning that my poor hospitality was due to my lack of a kitchen and not because I didn’t appreciate her visit.
Well, she laughed and laughed. “Boughten?!” she said. “What the fuck kind of word is ‘boughten’?”
At first I was confused. “It means store-bought,” I said.
“It’s not even a word,” she sneered.
So I looked it up, and it was in the dictionary, but it also said “chiefly dial.”
“Wow,” she said, “you speak dialect!”
So she ate all the cookies, and then I screened my calls and never answered the phone when she called, and in fact I never saw her again after that, not even once.
This past Saturday, Sluggo and I were at a memorial service at someone’s home, and everyone brought food and put it out on a big table. There was a gigantic coconut layer cake looming over all the other desserts, massive and lumpy and tipping a little to one side, with thick white icing and coconut fur making it look like an escapee from the Isle of Misfit Tortes. And far below it was a pretty little two-layer bakery cake with that perfect icing that goes on in a flat sheet, and perfect little icing flowers decorating the top. “Look at those cakes!” said a woman standing next to me. “I think the little one is boughten, though.”
I turned to see who’d said that. It was an older lady, thin and flat as a folded-up ironing board, with a short mop of white hair on top. “Oh,” I grinned, “I say that too! I say ‘boughten.’ ”
She peered at me through her old-lady glasses and made a face like she just drank a glass of vinegar. “I was joking.” she sniffed.
“What?”
“I was joking. I would never say ‘boughten’. ” And she turned her face away from me as if my unfortunate English usage might be contagious.
“I guess I’m just country,” I said.
“I guess,” she replied.
But what I really wanted to say was, “To hell with you, you old bitch! I say boughten and I pronounce root so it sounds like good, and maybe I’m NOT as good as you are, maybe I’m BETTER! Did you ever think of that, you old harpy?!” And then I would grab her boney little shoulders and shove her face in that fucking perfect little boughten bakery cake.
So I guess I’m a little bit rock-and-roll, too.
Memories they can't be boughten
They can't be won at carnivals for free
Well it took me years
To get those souvenirs
And I don't know how they slipped away from me
Posted by: Ajax | October 28, 2008 at 01:46 PM
Ha. I haven't heard that in years. We used to say that where I grew up, but that was in Eastern Washington, not Iowa. (Although half my family is originally from Iowa.) I didn't realize it was dialect, in fact, once I really thought about the word, I totally axed it out of my vocab. I wish I could've remained a little truer to my roots.
Posted by: Gavin | October 28, 2008 at 01:48 PM
You need never apologize for serving Walker shortbreads, or even Chessmen—or for saying "boughten."
Posted by: WmMBerger | October 28, 2008 at 02:13 PM
My wife and I had this same discussion. I said "BOUGHTON" about something and she said "THAT'S NOT A WORD"...So I looked it up in the dictionary, found it, showed her and the case was closed! I'm from IOWA and, believe it or not...so is my wife.
Posted by: Michael | October 28, 2008 at 02:18 PM
We avoid such unpleasantries by serving
this stuff ====> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koliva
at our memorial services.
When it is good, it is very, very good.
Posted by: Listener Demetrios | October 28, 2008 at 04:56 PM
I heard that before. Every part of the country is different. I used to think I was weird because I pronounced root like "boot". Whatever, as long as we understand each other. You know that song "you say tomato, I say toe-mah-toe"? Who the hell says toe-mah-toe? I guess someone out there does...and I would know what they mean, so it's no big deal...It's like people getting bent out of shape because you would rather use a PC than a Mac...who cares? I've known people who pronounce the word "striped" as though it it has two syllabels, like "imbed" or "misled"...I've pointed it out and asked why they do that and they're like "do what? what do you mean?" Come on! I'm not passing judgement, I'm just wondering, that's all...
Posted by: Bill | October 28, 2008 at 09:54 PM
Wow, attractive!
Posted by: webdesign | October 28, 2008 at 10:39 PM
Some take an ax to their vocab. Others just ax questions.
Posted by: dan | October 29, 2008 at 02:05 AM
I grew up hearing my Polish peasant parents speaking broken English. Still love hearing my 86 year old dad create new hybrid words. Language is malleable and alive. Fuck a bunch o' rigid ninnies who can't handle creativity.
Posted by: Krys O. | October 29, 2008 at 09:44 AM
My dad used to call the things that held your teeth gumes. The thing that let the smoke out of the house was the chim-bley. And the past tense of climb was clim (as in 'he clim up the ladder"). We knew what he meant and we didn't dare correct him. As an aside, a wake isn't a wake without a variety of jello dishes such as ambrosia.
Posted by: Dale Hazelton | October 29, 2008 at 10:17 AM
I grew up in Eastern Nebraska, son of Northern Minnesotan parents. Twice a year we would drive 550 miles to see my grandparents "up nort." We always stopped to eat at any one of a handful of cafes along the route somewhere in the Dakotas. My mother's litmus test of each cafe was whether the pies were "homemade" or "boughten frozen." Three stars for the cafe with homemade pie--five stars if the meringue was three (or more) inches tall. Woe to the cafe with "boughten frozen," as it would be summarily derided and skipped over on future trips. "Not there, she would grimace, "Their pies are boughten frozen." Of course, over time "boughten frozen" would become the food service norm--as would the franchised restaurants that have all but replaced those little Mom & Pop cafes. Thanks Iowa Firecracker for the trip down Midwestern Memory Lane!
Posted by: Bob | October 29, 2008 at 12:29 PM
I'm from St. Louis, where the south side is permeated with "Scrubby Dutch" pronunciation (e.g., "warsh", "tarlet", "harses", etc.). I was quite astonished when I discovered that "drinken" (past tense of "drink", naturally) wasn't recognized as a real word. Nuts to them. I still use it.
Posted by: Mike | October 29, 2008 at 12:41 PM
Firecracker go POP!
Posted by: | October 29, 2008 at 01:16 PM
"The king is dead
but not forgotten
Don't eat the cranberries
If they are boughten.
Posted by: Janey Yonkers | October 29, 2008 at 02:19 PM
What a bizatch.
And I am not making fun of bizatch. I'd say that.
Posted by: jenny | November 03, 2008 at 04:45 PM
i say "roof" that way too! i thought it was just a michigan thing.
Posted by: robin | November 03, 2008 at 06:09 PM
My grandma says "boughten", and she's from southwestern Ontario, Canada. Seems to be a widespread (across North America) rural phenomenon.
Posted by: Will S. | January 20, 2009 at 11:02 PM
I'm a fan of the word boughten. And a word I may like even better is "tump", as in: The boat tumped over and we all fell in the water. My husband never fails to point out that it's not a real word, but I don't really care.
I was just with my mom (who lives in TX, where I grew up [hence my use of the word "tump"]) while she recovered from surgery. Her friends brought food each day after she come home from the hospital, but much of it was boughten; things like a plate of food from Boston Market. I was surprised ... and not disappointed that they sometimes didn't bring food for me as well.
Posted by: Peggy | March 21, 2009 at 03:56 PM
I enjoyed this story almost as much as this slice of pecan (pee can) pie I'm washing down with the best cup of coffee that's ever been saucered and blowed.
Posted by: Jimbo | March 23, 2009 at 07:32 PM