# wasper vs wasp **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898 "2011-02-10T15:31:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/21 "2016-09-12T04:51:00Z")
I wonder - does the OP’s (2011 model) boyfriend put an “R” into the word “wash”? My kid sister picked up that bit of “Quaint” speech in Southern IN (she was 8 when the family moved. I was 12 and had the correct version encoded). ---
**Author:** ![Brynda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/22 "2016-09-12T05:41:43Z")
OP here; 2011 model boyfriend is now 2016 model husband. He doesn’t say “warsh.” If he did, he might have become 2011 model former boyfriend. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/23 "2016-09-12T05:55:12Z")
No one in Texas where I grew up. Perhaps more importantly, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s place in Tennessee’s neighbor Arkansas and never heard it there either. I’ve never heard it anywhere, this is the first time. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/24 "2016-09-12T13:31:52Z")
> [@Davanita](#): > > I am a young woman from backwoods Tennessee myself. The term wasper is commonly used in this area of the country. The backwoods Tennessee (and surrounding areas) dialect is more closely related to elizabethton(may be spelt incorrectly) English than any other dialect spoken in the United States today. My best educated guess is that it is a carry over from that era or a simple bastardization that came late. > [@Davanita](#): > > I have already returned with more studies. ‘Wasper’ could easily be a term used as a term for a person who kills them. It would just make sense to call someone a “wasper” if they eradicated them from areas as an occupation. > > I present another theory. Tennessee not only had a high English immigration rate, it was home to many Germans also. The German word for wasp is wespe, and the settlers are known to bastardize German words (e.g Pennsylvania Dutch is not Dutch, but said they were from Deutschland) It is imaginable that ‘wespe’ could have been bastardized and pronounced as wasper. It easily could have stayed in the southern vernacular. **Davanita** , thank you for the information. It was quite informative and helpful. That’s exactly what we need in these parts, so I hope you stick around. Welcome to the boards! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/25 "2016-09-12T16:02:19Z")
> [@Davanita](#): > > It is imaginable that ‘wespe’ could have been bastardized and pronounced as wasper. The German W is pronounced more like English V, though, so why didn’t it become Vesper or suchlike? ---
**Author:** ![Cold\_Dish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@Cold\_Dish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cold_Dish)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/26 "2016-09-12T16:12:16Z")
SE Missouri & NE Arkansas checking in. Most everyone here knows what a wasper is! ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/27 "2016-09-13T14:24:24Z")
Southern WV, yeah - I’ve heard ‘Wasper’. Though not since moving to Northern WV. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/28 "2016-09-13T21:38:35Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > No one in Texas where I grew up. Perhaps more importantly, **I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s place in Tennessee’s neighbor Arkansas and never heard it there either**. I’ve never heard it anywhere, this is the first time. > [@Cold\_Dish](#): > > SE Missouri & NE Arkansas checking in. Most everyone here knows what a wasper is! Just to clarify, my grandmother was in NW Arkansas, away from Tennessee. Sounds like Tennessee is Ground Zero for the wasper movement. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/29 "2016-09-13T22:10:45Z")
I’ve since heard my dad use it. He seems to use older terms as he gets older. And I am in NW Arkansas. ---
**Author:** ![Willcross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Willcross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willcross)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/30 "2016-09-15T12:43:02Z")
I was born in West Tennessee and have heard Wasper all my life. I’m 30 years old for reference. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/31 "2016-09-15T13:13:55Z")
I used to hear “waspers” fairly often when I was a kid back in West Virginia, but I haven’t heard that word used in many years. It was a country, old-folks sort of word back then even, and it only referred to the kind of wasps or hornets that build little paper honeycomb nests in places like old barns and outbuildings; the other common wasp kind of varmints were called “dirt daubers” because they’d literally build their nests out of dried mud. As I said at first, though, that was many years back and many miles away. In fact I’d forgotten ever hearing the words “waspers” and “dirt daubers” until I saw the title of this thread! ---
**Author:** ![Samdugcat1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Samdugcat1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Samdugcat1)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/32 "2017-06-19T23:53:56Z")
I’m from WV. And Wasper is pretty much all I’ve ever heard them called. I moved to Northern part of West Virginia, everyone up here calls them Wadps. So if I’m with my family in the Southern part of the state I say wasper Northern part Wasp. ---
**Author:** ![JulieO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JulieO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JulieO)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/33 "2017-06-24T23:51:27Z")
I lived in rural Tennessee my whole life. I never knew it wasn’t actually called a wasper until I met my husband. He is from Pennsylvania ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/34 "2017-06-24T23:53:22Z")
> [@JulieO](#): > > I lived in rural Tennessee my whole life. I never knew it wasn’t actually called a wasper until I met my husband. He is from Pennsylvania Didn’t anyone who called it a “wasper” ever try to look it up in a dictionary? ---
**Author:** ![JulieO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JulieO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JulieO)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898/35 "2017-06-25T00:36:22Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Didn’t anyone who called it a “wasper” ever try to look it up in a dictionary? Speech is learned from the things you hear. If you’ve never heard it called anything else, it wouldn’t occur to you that’s it’s wrong and you should look it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasper-vs-wasp/570898.md?page=1)