Harelips the Queen

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning, this is Brian Moore. I’m calling from Fairview, Texas.

Hi, Brian. Welcome to the show.

What’s up?

Well, I’ve got an expression that my dad used to use,

And I don’t know where it came from or to whom it refers,

But the expression was when he was adamantly opposed to something,

He would say something to the effect of,

I don’t care if it hair lips the queen.

I don’t care if it hair lips the queen?

Exactly.

And so this is a defiant statement, right?

Yes.

Interesting. There’s a lot to be said about this.

Yeah.

Two questions for you, though, Brian.

One, did you ever ask him where he got it, what he meant, what he was up to when he was saying that?

I did not.

Did he kind of have that wink or that glistening eye, the twinkle that showed that he was being funny or ironic?

More so than adamantly opposed.

Okay, very good.

So it’s not like he standing in front of a judge in a court saying, I protest your honor.

No, as a matter of fact, my dad was an attorney.

There we go.

Okay.

All right.

Well, this particular expression, the best part of it, when we get to digging out kind of the whole story here, is the verb, to hair lip.

And in case people aren’t really familiar, because it’s apparently less common than it used to be,

A hair lip on a person is when you were born with this congenital defect of the upper lip,

Usually around the philtrum.

That’s that little divot between the two sides of your upper lip, like under the nostrils.

There’s a split there.

And usually it’s corrected very early on in someone’s life now with surgery.

And if there’s a scar at all, it’s almost invisible.

But it looks just like the split lip of the hair, the animal,

You know, the little bunny-like creature with the long ears and the fluffy tail that eats grass.

Right, so it’s H-A-R-E rather than H-A-I-R.

I never actually connected that congenital defect with an actual animal’s lip.

Yeah, and the story about why they call it a hair lip, besides it looks like that, well, not the story,

But part of the thing is there used to be a superstition in Ireland and some other countries

That if a woman who was pregnant saw a hair out and about, that she was more likely to have a child with a hair lip.

And in some places, if a woman saw any kind of animal, her child was likely to be born looking like that animal.

So stay away from the horses, I guess.

And so what we find then that this is associated with also a little bit with the devil and some other superstitions.

The hare was known as an animal that brought bad fortune.

And it’s kind of the opposite of the lucky rabbit’s foot, which is really interesting to me.

And so over time, the hare has just generally taken on this kind of negative aspect.

So when you talk about hair-lipping somebody, you are wishing them ill will.

You’re wishing that they have this physical defect on their body.

But it’s not just the queen who got this message.

I mean, I’ve got a whole, I mean, you can dig this out for yourself, but hair-lips the president, hair-lips every dog in Texas, hair-lips every cow in Texas, hair-lips the state of Texas, hair-lips the pope, hair-lips the nation, hair-lips the governor, hair-lips all of Arkansas, hair-lips the whole county, hair-lips the South, hair-lips everybody from here to Georgia,

And hair lips all the cats in Grimes County, wherever that is.

And Charles Augustus Lindbergh and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And I don’t care if it hair lips the world.

There we go.

It’s another one I’ve seen.

So this is a notion of defiance,

Which I’m going to do this regardless of what the consequences for other people

Or somebody important or somebody august.

And you’ll notice here that in the list that we read out,

There’s definitely a Southern kind of, I don’t know,

A Southern notion to this is very much a Southern American term.

This is not the kind of thing that is all that common in the North.

Well, we should point out, too, that many dictionaries will tell you that the term hair lip itself is offensive or somewhat offensive.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Right.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, Brian, that’s everything I’ve got on hair lips whoever, Brian.

As Martha noted, though, it’s really not the most sensitive of expressions because we try to be fair and nice about such things.

Obviously.

Be careful with this.

And I don’t think he ever used it with any animus at all.

I think it was just a funny expression that was part of his background.

Very colorful.

Brian, thank you so much for calling.

Well, thank you all so much.

I really enjoy your show, and I’m glad to see that someone has picked up the gauntlet after John Chiardi’s absence from NPR.

Oh, he was my inspiration back in the day.

I loved listening to him.

Mine as well.

Thanks, Brian.

Well, Brian, good words to you.

I’m John Chiardi.

Thanks, and you too.

Great success.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we love those colorful expressions from the South, don’t we, Grant?

We love colorful expressions from anywhere.

That’s true.

Well, we’d love to hear yours.

Call us 877-929-9673 or send it to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.