Favorite Muzzleloader sayings

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For a more complete list of mountain terms and sayings the AMM (American Mountaim Men) has a directory compiled by Walt Griz - (last name escapes me-Hazard?). Some of the 4th graders I teach have to remember 36 or more of them. During presentations I play stump the mountain man. If they come up with a term I can't remember I have to stand on a wood stump until I can stump them back. Having a vocabulary of over 100 terms gives me a slight advantage but I purposely fudge or pretend to get stumped to keep the fun and kids' interest going on. He has the har of the bar. Keep arras off yer meat bag. This is crimpy weather. I know which way my stick floats. He has his bark on. Gone under. Gone beaver. Feast cakes (are pancakes.)
 
More. Know the difference between fat cow and poor bull. My Hawken or J. J. Henry shoots plumb center. Poor fixin's. Possibles bag. Prime possibles.. Galena pills - lead balls. DuPont - black powder. Averdenty = agua diente - whiskey. Taos Lightning - whiskey from wheat. Shinin' mountains - The Rocky Mountains.
 
His shootin' is so bad he couldn't hit the ground if he fell out of a tree.
 
Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.....
Funny..., the earliest reference to that is from 1852... applied to baseball pitching.
The first documented "official baseball game" was in 1846. It seems that the game became so popular so fast, that by 1852 there were people writing stories about teams in the newspapers. The writer was remarking on the quality of a pitcher for a team....,

NOW it WAS also a time period where they were still using muzzleloaders, so the author may indeed have used a term familiar to his audience from shooting to describe a pitcher who was so poor at throwing strikes, that it was said, "He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn"....

LD
 

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