Today we were celebrating my daughter’s 32 birthday-I can’t even begin to think she’s that old). Anyway, someone was trying to get me to eat something and I said " I’ve already eaten such a bate/bait of that salad I can’t eat any more. (bate/bait meaning “a large amount”) Well, everyone looked at me like I was speakin’ in tongues or somethin’- swore they’d never heard that word used like that. My DH and my mom were the only ones there who’d heard it used like that.
Well, I came back home and looked it up- hmm- no help there in the dictionary. Any of y’all ever heard that word used like that before?
all the time! also use the word ate instead of eat! we irish know how to mess with language,
i would have said" im after atin that much of that salad im as full as a shuck".
oh and sometines id say “bet”, instead of “bait”: as in “he bet into me finger, the fecker, so i gave him a dunt to the jawbox”!
In Belfast ‘Norn Iron’ bate can mean bit, as in "Ahada fer bate te ate’: I had a fair bit to eat. The usage has mostly died out, I know when I was a child I would get confused when someone would say ‘He fairly bate (beat) the drum’ I would get ‘beat’ mixed up with ‘bit’, why would he have ‘bit’ his drum I thought to myself?!
As I said, bate also means beat, as in ‘He tuck a fur bating’: he took a fair beating.
“How did the feckin’ dog get out of the yard?” “He bate (bit) through his lead, Da”
Another word I love and haven’t heard in a long time is ‘whir’ or ‘wur’ meaning ‘our’, as in ‘This is whir house’.
My mom always used the word ‘reading’ or ‘redding’ to mean straightening, as in ‘Take a few minutes and read up the house before your friend comes over.’ I never heard anyone else say it until a couple of years ago a woman who worked for me used it. My mom grew up in central Ohio, I live in northeastern Ohio as does the woman who worked for me.
I’ve heard the word used that way, but it’s been many years ago.
My older relations, now mostly gone, might say something like “I have had my bate of that!”, meaning “Whatever you’re doing, you’d be well advised to stop,” as the next words were likely to involve the lovely phrase “go cut me a keen little switch.”
I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard it used about eating food, though…only to express exasperation.
My mom always used the word ‘reading’ or ‘redding’ to mean straightening, as in ‘Take a few minutes and read up the house before your friend comes over.’
I am familiar with the term “reddin’” used in nearly the same context as you describe, my Mum used to say she would ‘red’ the house of something, meaning she was ridding the house of clutter, which may have been something like our toys lying around.
Who exactly is ‘our’ in your post, Jack? …Just to clarify
I too think it could be a corruption of bite/bit, but who knows where it came from? It may have originated in the middle east for all I know but I am interested because it is so similar to the Belfast meaning.
Hey, Innocent Bystander…If yerself is a big bahllix from the ancient Kingdom of Ulster, then your avatar must be Jerry Adams!!!
I have heard people from Armagh use “bate” instead of “beat” as CWM has noted, i.e. “He bate him with a stick.” The definition that Wanderer has found seems to be local to that area of the US.
You may be right there djm, but I am just wondering where the corruption (of what ever word it was originally) came from? I wonder if cowtime has recent (historical) Irish family connections that would explain this usage of the term ‘bate’. What say you cowtime?
Q: “What was the craic like?” A: “Ye cudden bate it with a big stick!”
That’s the definition I’m familiar with. Heard it used quite a bit growing up, particularly by my western North Carolina relatives. My dad is quite fond of a “bait of killed branch lettuce”.
Ditto with my mother. She would instruct me to “red the table”. I never heard of bait being used to mean a large amount, though. However, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion with the term, “baited breath” or “bated breath”. “She was waiting with baited breath”. There are a number of online entries about this if you do a search.
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