When you have two teen girls, there’s always the chance that one or the other will wake up ill as hell. All y’all Southern mamas are out there nodding along in agreement. You know what I mean.
I’m not talking about a case of the sniffles or running a fever. Oh no. Here in North Carolina, ill is an adjective. It’s used to describe foul, vicious little moods. It seems like teenagers are prone to them.
The use of ill as an adjective can be traced back to the 1200s. Its roots are in the Old Norse word illr, meaning evil or bad. It wasn’t until the 1400s that the word came to be associated with sickness.
I’ve never used it that way. To me, ill has always meant cranky. It’s the perfect word to describe me when I was growing up. When I’d get too obnoxious, Daddy would threaten to jerk a knot in my tail for it. Sometimes he followed through on that threat too.
Luckily, both of my girls have always been pretty respectful of their boundaries. They never did push the bad moods too far.
I don’t know where they got that from. It certainly wasn’t me. I was a rebel from the start. When I got ill, I didn’t know when to stop. Truth be told, I still don’t.
How about you? Do you get ill from time to time?
No I’ve always been a laid-back kind of a guy. However, when my kids were teenagers and got into one of their
many fussing and fighting spells I would become close to being as “ill as a hornet”. Fortunately though, I never became as “mean as a stripped snake”. Sending them to their rooms to let all of us cool off for a while was usually enough.
My girls have never been too bad. We all get in our little moods. Thanks to homeschool, they’ve always been thicker than thieves.
I’ve heard ill as a hornet and mean as a striped snake! I say them both too.
Daddy used to say “iller n’ hell.” I wanted to make that the blog title, but I didn’t know if anyone would know what it meant outside of Appalachia. lol
I’ve come across many hornets (and yellow jackets) that I would definitely classify as being “ill”. The mean as a stripped snake (garter snake?) has always puzzled me though. Maybe somewhere there exists a “mean” snake which has stripes. Well anyway thanks for the wonderful posts (and recipes) you put up!
Awww! Thank ya! I appreciate that. 🙂
I get ill when there’s trash thrown in my yard or when I see a bully treating someone terribly but I have never been one to wake up ill in the morning like my sister.
I don’t wake up ill often… but I’m definitely more ill-tempered than others. I try not to be, though! 😉