on, This page was last edited on 22 January 2022, at 17:42. This page was last edited on 17 January 2023, at 01:18. We've had a lot of delays, but God willing and the creek don't rise, we should have the house finished before winter. This Southern saying, God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise. The Creek so-called civil war of 1812 involving the Red Stick faction, and their combat North and South, appears to have been an impetus for that forts creation. in Williams' mouth in his tribute album Hillbilly Heaven. (LogOut/ It is sometimes thought that the word "Creek" instead refers to the Creek Indians, but this is unlikely. From the beginning, the first narrative of Sadie Blue, which broke my heart from the first page, it feels like it will be her story. Im told it was a sign-off tag line of the 1930s US radio broadcaster Bradley Kincaid. Now, she admits to saying this to her children. HARDY, Ark. January 2021: Hat tip to Maria whonotes that the collection of Benjamin Hawkinss letters has now been digitized and can be read at this link. I'm fixin' to tell you that this phrase is as Southern as sweet tea. The story of Benjamin Hawkins relationship with the Creek,Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians goes back to 1786, when America was working on solidifying its hold on the new nation. "Well I s'wanee" evokes the Southern Suwannee River. You may still hear it if you stop into a country store. "If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creek Don't Rise" was later covered by Johnny Cash during his tenure at Sun, and a few of the other tracks here ", If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise, "If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creek Don't Rise", Learn how and when to remove this template message, "World Wide Words: God willing and the creek don't rise", "William Clark Green: 'Ringling Road' Album Review", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=If_the_Good_Lord%27s_Willing_and_the_Creek_Don%27t_Rise&oldid=1067282742, "If The Lord's Willing And The Creeks Don't Rise", song by, "If The Good Lord's Willing And The Creek Don't Rise", Lattie Moore, Jerry Reed 1961, "If The Good Lord's Willing", Ray Godfrey, arranged Jerry Reed, Tollie Records 1964, "(Be The Good Lord Willing) The Creek Don't Rise", Jivin' Gene, arranged Smith, Hall-Way Records 1964, "God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise", with the lyric "God willin' an the creek don't rise, I'll be home again before this time next year." The grit and darkness don't just belong to Sadie, though. [2] In the Reed song and Cash cover the verses vary the rhyme, so the opening line commences: If the good Lord's willing and the creek stays down I'll be in your arms time the moon come around. The resulting warfare and predictable civilian losses in the South reportedly gave rise (using the Southern frontier penchant for willin as opposed to the educated willing) to the phrase which was then likely mistakenly attributed to Hawkins due to his Native American connections. It was a big old chunk of a book, so only a couple of the kids including myself read it. https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Lord_willing_and_the_creek_don%27t_rise&oldid=70955250. The saying "God willing and the Creek don't rise." Came from those traveling west in the OLD DAYS. Well, hells bells. So the saying came about like we'll be there.God willing and the Creek (indians) don't rise..to stop us. She's seventeen, pregnant and two weeks into her marriage to Roy Tupkin, after enduring brutal beatings, Sadie knows she has made a mistake. A strikingly sincere portrait of a town and its buried secrets from an outstanding new voice in southern fiction. With a colorful cast of characters and a flair for the Southern Gothic, If the Creek Don't Rise is a debut novel bursting with heart, honesty, and homegrown grit. I grew up with that saying and Ive said it more times than I can count. Stop right there! Anything to the degree of "all get out" is something to talk about. You will have spotted that neither of these capitalises creek, which suggests they didnt have the Creek people in mind. The doin hasnt been done yet. Thats a mouthful, but we lumped these all together because they are allsubstitutes for (God) d*mn it. I was going to ask him why, but I had to shoot him. "Like all great southern. Depending on where you are, youre likely to hear words combined together (gonna for going to) and different vowel sounds than youre used to, including mah for my and git for get.Git has been in use since the 16th century all over the country, but is particularly common in the South, where it appears in everything from classic literature (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird) to personal correspondence (I want you to write me as soon as you git this letter, from a letter dating back to the Civil War). Paperback, 305 pages. When I was growing up, this was something we said all of the time. is a common way to use this next Southern cussemism. It traces to the 1700s and is based on darnation, the mild form of damnation. The approximately 20,000 Creek Indians that still exist reside in Oklahoma. A handful of rivers and streams will be out of their banks by Friday evening and Saturday morning. Following that treaty John Siever formed the state of Franklin from land previously claimed by North Carolina but never ceded by the Indian tribes. The English language is forever changing. Im not going to wrestle with historians and their Creek uprising story. Come visit me at LeahWeiss.com where you can subscribe to my CREEKRISE author news. Then theres a long gap in the record before it began to appear again in the 1950s. QFrom Bob Scala: An item that has been floating around the internet claims that the expression God willing and the creek dont rise referred to the Creek Indians, not a body of water. However, with the west in flames, both whites and Indians began organizing fighters. In response to a request that he return to Washington D.C., he wrote, "God willing and the Creek don't rise." Historians and etymologists may cringe, but the modern usage of Lord willin and the creek (or crick) dont rise is about the stream, not the Creek tribe. "If the creek don't rise" is a slang phrase predominantly used in the Southeastern United States and can translate to "if all goes well." It's a more conditional action statement than the famous phrase "come hell or high water." You'll also find a longer version of my official bio: It's bold, powerful, dark and hard to believe that this is a debut novel. Instead of "Well, I swear," Southerners have adopted a geographically inspired alternative. Anytime it rains as hard as it did last night, it always brings back fears of having to face something like we did in 1984, he said. If the Creek rose, Hawkins would have to be present to quell the rebellion. writes one commentator.. The catchphrase itself was associated with Hank Williams. (LogOut/ This was the phrase that he always used, at the end of each performance. Something needed to fill in the gap: Yall is one solution associated with the South, with all generally serving to clarify more than one you is being addressed. If you find only minnows, though, they look even smaller compared to the heavy catch you hoped for. DeSantis's year-long quest to strip Disney of its self-rule came after the entertainment giant, and Florida's . It's raining cats and dogs. The swear-word equivalent would be something along the lines of No sh*t!I declare may have come from an English oath (the sworn proclamation kind) declaring that no foreign parties have power to subvert the Crown. Kicked in the gut and sucker punched with one of the best books I have ever read. Yet here I stand before you a speckled hermit, wrapt in the risen-sun counterpane of my popilarity, an intendin, Providence permittin, and the creek dont rise, to go it blind!. Somehow, the word went full circle and is now considered a distinctly Southern invention. Learn how your comment data is processed. The expression "the creek don't rise" is an American slang expression implying strong intentions subject to complete frustration by uncommon but not unforeseeable events. I will continue to look for references to this phrase origin and would welcome discussion to prove (one way or the other) what the original author intended to mean. There, we listened to amazing stories told by Dr. John Mattox. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Faire can mean both do and make. This phrase entered the Southern vernacular via Louisiana and is in regular use in the New Orleans area. Positive thinking, Southern style. This was a Traveling Sister Read with Brenda, Sarah, Jennifer and Porshajo. World Wide Words tries to record at least a part of this shifting wordscape by featuring new words, word histories, words in the news, and the curiosities of native English speech. the creek don't rise " is an American slang expression implying strong intentions subject to complete frustration by uncommon but not unforeseeable events. World Wide Words is copyright Michael Quinion, 1996. Firsts, Mines, Asks. Whether you're talking about volume or value, a hill of beans isn't worth much. And this is one appearance in a newspaper: We are an American people, born under the flag of independence and if the Lord is willing and the creeks dont rise, the American people who made this country will come pretty near controlling it. Select your currency from the list and click Donate. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. [3] The capitalization of the word Creek supposedly referred to the Creek Indian tribe rather than a body of water.[4][5]. This article about the English language is a stub. But, what we do know is English once used you and ye strictly to address a group of people. If the Creek Don't Rise is a collection of hard-used characters, tangled relationships, family angst, and fortitude. A very young, newly married pregnant woman, she vows her no good moonshining husband has beaten her for the last time. She captures the whole Appalachian scene - the vocabulary, the falling down houses, the likker, the poverty. She's not looking for sweets; she wants a hug and a kiss. In his response, he was said to write, God willing and the Creek dont rise. Because he capitalized the word Creek it is deduced that he was referring to the Creek Indian tribe and not a body of water. Threats not only from abroad, but internally as well, forced the fledgling nation to negotiate treaties with the tribes on the western frontier. However, this is clearly one of those evolving language cases. It must surely be the creation of a fertile modern mind desiring to put the flesh of evidence on the dry bones of outright invention. Your email address will not be published. He was a politician and Indian agent. In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett OHara says: I do declare, Frank Kennedy, if you dont look dashing with that new set of whiskers!. The Cree and the Creek lived over a thousand miles apart, (the Cree are from Canada), so we now have people contributing folk etymologies that are nonsense on their face. For instance if someone invites you to church on Sunday, you would respond "I'll be there with bells on God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise.". In alternating first person narratives from a cast of characters that will be hard to forget, Leah Weiss took me to the mountain community called Baines Creek in the Appalachian Mountains in NC. As I was in a museum, I felt confident in repeating the knowledge to others as fact. Historically, Southerners in the Appalachian mountains pronounced eternal as tarnal. That pronunciation suggests a clever word-smoosh between tarnal and damnation, so the savvy Appalachians could euphemistically express their anger without wasting an extra breath. It's almost always accompanied by a good-natured, perhaps slightly exasperated, shake of the head. Throughout the years, through these floods, weve had several roads that have washed completely out, so you just dont know whats down there.. The distinct English dialect of the American South, which has a close relationship with Black English (African American Vernacular English), is fascinatingand plenty lively. And yes, I have heard the music of this culture and watched the dancing. (the good) Lord willing and the creek don't rise rural If all goes as it should; if everything goes well. It's true, we do have a mouthful of sayings that only Southerners understand. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we'll have that new barn finished in time for the harvest. If you hear this one, you should probably pause a moment. Copy furnished by Net Galley for the price of a review. Because that is supposedly how the original author first wrote it. (LogOut/ Though youre likely to hear Southernisms such as hold your horses and pretty as a peach nationwide, youll likely only hear the following from a true Southerner. This phrase enjoyed national exposure in 1988 after Texas Governor Ann Richards remarked: When we pay billions for planes that wont fly, billions for tanks that wont fire, and billions for systems that wont workthat old dog wont hunt.. Thats exactly who I was hoping would reply to my question. Is It Called Presidents Day Or Washingtons Birthday? Over yonder past the cotton field. The clipping below from 1892 is a reference to flooding waterways not allowing the postmaster to get to his office. The first big battles in the Creek War were, indeed, attacks on white settlements, but it was not a matter of an uprising that threatened settlers, rather it was an outbreak of war between two armed groups in which whites and Indians sought each other out. This 19th-century phrase was once used to refer to some fierce, imaginary beast, until we went off course and adopted the current meaning of "awry.". (Recall, also, that the Creek who did go to war against the whites were a smaller group within the Creek nation and that the larger group remained neutral or actively assisted the whites in the warat which point they were betrayed by having the U.S. sieze all their land.).
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