It seems every time I see a meme about speaking “Pittsburghese,” i see “redd-up” mentioned as meaning cleaning up. My dear mother-in-law has lived in Pittsburgh her entire life, and claims never to have heard anyone use this expression. Is “redd-up” really used as commonly as the memes suggest?
Not everybody uses it, but it is very common. It’s probably more of a lower class thing, at least in my experience. It’s considered slangy.
I always thought it was “ret up” when I was growing up. I don’t remember ever seeing it spelled out.
Hasse instead of House.
Another “Pittsburgh-ism” that I didn’t realize was a Pittsbugh-ism is that we tend to say “the room needs redd up” instead of “the room needs to be redd up”, or “that shirt needs washed” instead of “that shirt needs to be washed” (we leave out the “to be” part). I thought that was just normal slangy speech until someone on the SDMB pointed it out about a decade ago. I went a good portion of my life without realizing that was a regionalism.
My mother, born in 1913, grew up in the vicinity of Elizabeth PA, about 20 miles from Pittsburgh. She always used the term “redd up” in reference to cleaning house. I say it too, just to tease my wife, who thinks it sounds ridiculous.
One thing my mother used to say I have never figured out. I assume it’s Pittsburghese but I have never encountered another person who says it. She always referred to a clothes closet as a “clothes press.” Has anyone ever heard that one?
By the way, my mom was very well-spoken and never called other people “yinz” or “yous.”
Yinzer here.
I’ve been told that I have a strong Pittsburgh accent.
I can’t recall ever hearing “redd up”. I may just not have noticed it.
I once saw “scrolls” as Pittsburgh speak for squirrels in a Pittsburghese speak gift shop type book and thought it wasn’t true, but then I started hearing it everywhere. I must have just been filtering it out.
I have heard it, but it was used to describe a wardrobe, not a closet. Something like this:
I used to go donton to watch the Stillers at Three Rivers Stadium. (I’m sure there is/ was a Pittsburghese version of “Three Rivers Stadium” but I only lived there for 8 months in the late 80s.)
Of course! That makes sense, in a way. Since actual clothes closets were not all that common in houses in the early part of the 20th century, I could see that the term could have just carried over from wardrobes to clothes closets. Thanks for your insight!
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in old books. But I didn’t think it was a closet exactly, at least in the modern sense – Merriam-Webster says “a cabinet or trunk for storing clothes. especially : a tall, freestanding cabinet with shelves for holding folded clothes.” – ah, like @engineer_comp_geek illustrated.
I am not from, and have never spent more than a few days in, Pittsburgh.
That makes sense.
That’s an Ohio Valleyism, not confined to Pittsburgh.
It needs die, with extreme prejudice.
My DIL from Pittsburgh regularly says, “The dishes need washed”, as ECG suggested but I have never heard her say “Redd up”. FWIW.
Oh, dear, oh dear. You conjugated that all wrong. It would be “it needs died”, but that doesn’t work, so “it needs killed.”
I didn’t grow up with this construction, and it bewildered me when I first came across it about twenty years ago, but I quite like it.
Huh, didn’t realize until just now. Or I read that old thread and forgot. I’m from the Cleveland area but my whole family is from the Pittsburgh area via Slovakia. We totally talk like that.
Just my aunt’s family still lives in the Pittsburgh area now and they are deep Yinzers. I adore the accent because I love that part of the family and my uncle (RIP) had the deepest of accents. We love Pittsburgh Dad on YouTube!
Altho it’s striking when I hear the accent up here, even though most of the Youngstown area has it too. First thing I want to do is ask the person if they’re a Stillers fan, and then judge them for it.
Anyone headin-a GianIggle?
I have heard it, but it was used to describe a wardrobe, not a closet. Something like this:
This is where you keep pants ennat.
(I lived in the Pittsburgh area for 8 years)
I’m not sure I ever heard ‘redd up’ used seriously, but slippy roads and gumbands around things were common.
“Press” for a cupboard is an older usage, common in the past in England and (I believe) still not unknown in Ireland today (as in “linen press” of “hot press” for what I’d call an airing cupboard.
And the "needs washed’ formulation isn’t unknown over here, either (though usually deprecated - no idea if it’s particular to any specific region.
My wife grew up in the "Burgh, but she doesn’t have the accent. However, she also neglects the “to be” in certain sentences; i.e., “The sofa needs cleaned.” Also, it seems the one word she gets stuck on is sill, like windowsill. She pronounces it like “seal”.
My MIL, of course has the heavy accent. Down in pronounced like Don, she doesn’t go to a movie, she goes to the show, and she doesn’t go up the street, she goes upstreet.
Addendum, which should be known by all Yinzers: “Kennywood’s open!”
I’m not from Pittsburgh that I know of. I’m from west-central Indiana. We allus said, “Youinses.”
Working for the Indianapolis Journal, James Whitcomb Riley was a celebrity among newspaper columnists, and became well-to-do from speaking engagements. He wrote sentimental rhymes in Hoosier dialect that were reprinted nationwide ad infinitum but that have unfortunately not aged particularly well in the eyes of critics. One of his best known is “Little Orphant Annie (1885),” which contains the following lines:
Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
… so there’s a citation from the fin de siècle Midwestern Press of the use of the word press, meaning wardrobe, and you, too, can see the actual wardrobe at the Riley Home in Greenfield, IN.
My mom grew up in the Pittsburgh area. I heard “redd up,” “these clothes need washed,” “yinz,” and “iggle” the whole time I was growing up.
She was known to be a little fast and loose with the truth, though, so I was never sure if she was messing with me that those were Pittsburghisms. Nice to know that time she was telling me the truth.