Grammar Moses: Appellations in the Appalachians?

As you drink your morning coffee on the back deck, the warm sun in your face, your neighbors — especially the annoying ones — a safe distance away, you might think wistfully about the trip you're not taking right now.

That's what I was doing Friday morning while trying to come up with an idea for this column.

My wife and I have been contemplating doing something out of the ordinary for us in recent years — seeing the good old USA rather than visiting another country — in a pull-behind camper.

Our last ill-advised tent camping trip was 15 or more years ago. It involved a prolonged 105-degree heat wave in Missouri, mule deer dropping dead of heat stroke in the state park where we'd pitched our tent, an escape to a frigid Joplin motel room and the decision to pawn off on friends our entire collection of camping gear upon our return home.

We are thinking of testing the waters of Tennessee, where there are both mountains and low taxes.

Et voila!

When in doubt, think in paronomasias.

Your idea of fun might be to take a Jeep trip between the wineries of the Napa Valley.

But have you considered perusing the appellations of the Appalachians?

In Appalachia, I've heard tell, local wine is sometimes referred to as “Hillbilly Hooch.”

I did not make this up. And, yes, I've seen “Deliverance” several times. Hollywood would have you believe that the Appalachians are full of moonshiners. But there also is a pretty healthy wine industry in them thar hills.

Back to the weird near-homophone of the day.

“Appellation” is a noun that has a couple of meanings, but the relevant one here describes a geographical area under which a winegrower is authorized to identify and market wine.

“Appellation” comes from the Old French “apelacion,” meaning “name” or “denomination.”

“Appalachian” is pronounced nearly the same way, but with a “ch” sound rather than an “sh.”

At least that's how we say it in the Upper Midwest. Some in the Appalachians pronounce the third syllable “latch,” while we generally make it rhyme with the letter “H.”

But its origins are entirely different.

Spanish conquistadors adapted the name of a Native American village near what is now Tallahassee, Florida, to “Apalachee.”

So, back to the day I baked my brain while camping in Missouri.

Since then, inviting quizzical stares from my Illinoisan friends, I pronounce “Missouri” the way people on the western side of the state (far from St. Louis) often do: with an “uh” at the end.

Sweating the small stuff

Among the lesser casualties of COVID-19 has been the interruption of anything remotely fun to do in the suburbs.

You have no idea how much time and effort we put into previewing and covering summer festivals. So it was with, I'm certain, great seriousness that Deputy City Editor Bob Smith wrote to me recently:

“I was just about to pull together a brief on the cancellation of the 24th annual Art in Wilder Park event and it got me to wondering: with so many events being canceled this year, what does that mean to the term ‘annual' going forward? Will next year's art festival now become the 24th? Or would it be the 25th, even though there wasn't a 24th? Or, more to the point, would it no longer be an ‘annual' festival at all and would it just be the Art in Wilder Park? Can it be an annual festival if we skip a year?”

And you think we don't sweat the small stuff.

My response to Bob was that there can't be a 25th if there hadn't been a 24th, and if something has persisted with that much regularity, it is solidly “annual.” However, I would argue that something intended to be an annual event that debuted last year and was scrubbed this year should not be called a “annual” event until it had at least a couple of runs under its belt.

You have to earn that “annual” modifier in my book.

Anyone who has tried to blow the phrase “first annual” by me in a story knows my lecture well.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.