Larrupin’

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Bill Boyle in Dallas.

Hi, Bill. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Bill.

Well, I was wondering if you had any background information on the word larapin.

It’s a description of it tastes good, you know, it’s good.

And I grew up with that word being used around.

And as a matter of fact, this afternoon I had coffee with a guy, and he recognized the word.

And he said, yeah, he grew up with it to age 20 anyway.

He was wondering what the background to that word is.

So, Bill, did you have pie with that coffee and said, boy, that’s larapin good pie?

No, I just had coffee.

Well, how was the coffee?

It was ordinary.

Okay.

It wasn’t larapin.

No, as a matter of fact, that wasn’t.

-huh. And so this is a word you’ve used all your life. Any idea how to spell it?

L-A-R-A-B-I-N, as far as I can tell.

You know, that’s a phonetic interpretation.

Yeah, this word’s been around for a while, and it has lots of different spellings.

But the idea is that larap goes back to an old word that means to beat or to thrash.

So it’s sort of spanking good whatever, spanking good pie.

Yeah, whopping good pie or whopping bad coffee.

Larapin bad coffee.

I don’t know, you can’t even really say that.

It’s always positive, right?

Yeah, I think it’s always positive.

Isn’t that the way you’ve always used it?

Yeah, that’s all I’ve ever heard is it’s always positive.

Or we had a thumping good time at the wedding or something like that.

It’s funny.

There’s all these terms for beating or striking that can be used in a figurative way to mean excellent or great.

So I don’t know if you ever were larripped as a child for being bad, but that’s another use of it.

Oh, did they have that in North Carolina, Martha?

Well, I would never have deserved any chastisement when I was growing up.

Okay.

So you never heard Larrape’s word.

That’s a lie, of course.

Martha, you shouldn’t cast aversion on people.

But you’re from Dallas area originally, somewhere in Texas.

You sound like pure Texas.

No, I was raised in Mission, home of the grapefruit,

Just three miles north of the lazy Rio Grande River,

70 miles upstream from where it flows into the calm and serene Gulf of Mexico.

I’ll put that on my list of places to go.

I love me some good grapefruit.

So, yeah, larapin means, well, larap means to beat or thrash.

And, yeah, parents used to say, I’m going to larap you.

And then it became, somehow it became a positive.

This has been in English, American English for a while.

Yeah, and especially in that area.

Oh, that’s right.

Texas, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma, Louisiana.

Yeah.

Pops up now and again in Tennessee and nearby states.

Yeah, I never heard it growing up in Kentucky.

You didn’t hear it growing up in?

No, I learned it from reading, that’s all.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, well, that’s excellent.

Bill, you’ve provided us with great information, and you’ve added to my life list of places I’m going to go visit.

Yeah, you need to come to Texas.

We’d love to come to Texas.

It’s moving up the list every time I talk to another Texan.

You have a guest room?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks, Bill.

I really appreciate it.

Thanks for sharing your story and telling us all about what this word means in your world.

All right?

Thank you very much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Bill.

Bye.

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