Maine Humor
special for Mainey

Click to be taken to a link for Maine Humorist
Tim Sample, scroll down to the Tapes and CD's part....there are Real Audio clips to listen to.

One of my favorites is the Born in Maine piece.

Here's a story about the old maid Downeast who'd just recieved the Boston Post cane for being the town's oldest inhabitant.  A reporter for the local newspaper came for an interview.  To what did she attribute her advanced age?
"Do you smoke??"
"Used to."
"Drink?"
"Been known to."
"Diet??"
"Eat pretty much what I've a mind to."
"Sicknesses??"
"Never."
"Do you mean that in eighty-four years you've never been bedridden??"
"No, " she is said to have exclaimed eagerly, "but I had it once in a dory!!"

Click to read
"You know your in Maine When..."

"No thanks" said a Lobster by post
When asked to a mid-summer roast
As he wisely said
"If you were white bread
Would you jump at the chance to be toast??"




Maine winters present many trials
But summer brings nothing but smiles
The air's cool at night
The fishing just right
And tourists leave money in piles

How to Talk Yankee.....
a sample of yankee vocabulary
I'll add more as I get more time to type

Ah......the letter between "q" and "s"

Ayuh..adv., Affirmative, yes.......A general purpose term which is conseidered THE WORD.  "Ayuh" is the truest touchstone of genuine Yankee speech. 

Bahmy.  Adj., balmy.......Use this for irony.  Said of fiercely cold temperatures.
"It was cold up there on Spider Lake??
"Bahmy.  Thirty-five below on the last day of February.  Never did get much fishing done.
"Well, wan't no blackflies to bother ye."

Barse-ackwards. Adv., reversed..........
"Sit yourself the other way in that canoe.  You're paddlin' it barse-ackwards."

Chum, Chummy. N., Form of address , male to male. used either in terms of warning as are Mister, or in terms of affection, as in buddy.

Driver, N., hard worker

Faht in a gale of wind.  Characterization, useless....
"Them plastic grills they put on cars nowadays ain't worth a faht in a gale of wind."

From away. {rep. phrase, transplanted residents.
"The folks that bought the Pingree place won't let our kids pick raspberries out back of the barn.  We've been doing that for years, and besides they admit they're not going to get 'em themselves."
"Well, they're from away and don't know no better."
"They'll learn, likely."   (another example... the house I grew up in is still referred to as The Carlton house even though we've been moved for 10 years.  The new owners will always be from away.)

Gawmy. Adj., Clumsy, akward.  also gawm, n., oafish person.
This is an ubiquitous and essential Downeast term. 
When Winston dropped the fishing trip's supply of beer down the well, his brother called him a gawmy bahstud, as he was.

Gorry! interjection, all true Yankees use this familiar expression.
"I ice fished Moosehead opening day, and gorry, wan't it cold!! Holes scum over as fast as you cut 'em."

Grassin', Part. or Ger., pursuit of the fleshy delights al fresco.
"Janie, when are you and I goin' grassin'?"
"Oh Billy, stop that!  You know my mother won't ever let me out of the house."

Wicked. Adv., Very...  as in that was wicked good

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