Your compiler’s late aunt, Helen Crawford (1909-2001) of Brooks, was a grade-A character of the first water. Always cutting up and carrying on, she would write letters to her nieces and nephews with all the words spelled backwards and could make up wickedly funny limericks on the spot.
One time in the early 1970s, with two nephews and three nieces piled into her 1965 Rambler American, on their way back to Brooks from a trip to Griffin, they passed through the Highway 16 hamlet of Zetella, and Miss Crawford asked if youngsters knew about the young lady from there who was in love. The kids all said, “No, ma’am.” So she began a limerick apparently composed in that moment:
There was a young maid from Zetella
Who fancied a ticklish fella.
Though her conscience didst prickle, she gave him a tickle
And his pants turned a very wet yella.
The kids nearly fell out of the car laughing.
And she would sing funny songs, as well, even though her singing voice was reminiscent of an aged pulpwood truck with a dying battery being started on a brisk February morning. The Preacher and the Bear was a favorite, as was Don’t Bring Lulu, the latter of which was a truly racy song from the 1920s that she would clean up for young ears – your compiler remembers, “You can bring Ruth with the rubber tooth, but don’t bring Lulu,” for some reason. With all her fun and carrying on, she had a true rapport with kids.
Another funny thing Miss Crawford said was the word she used to describe a general malaise; when one was not quite sick, but not exactly well, she would say he or she had, ‘The Epizootic.” When she said it, she pronounced it as most Southerners would tend to sound it out, which is pretty well how it looks – “ep-uh-ZOO-dic,” rather than the almost painfully correct and somewhat didactic, “ep-uh-zo-AH-dic.”
It is kind of like the related word, “zoology.” Virtually everyone pronounces it, “zoo – AH – lo – gee,” but guess what? There ain’t but two o’s after that z — not three — so it really should be, “zo – AH – lo – gee,” with a long o in the first syllable, but your compiler won’t jump up and down about that one if you won’t! (Your compiler rather obviously digresses, but he cannot help it. He is Southern, after all.)
But getting back to “epizootic,” what the formal word really means is a disease affecting many animals of a species at the same time – a sort of critter epidemic, if you will, but Miss Crawford used it to describe what we today would call the “blahs” or the “can’t-help-its.” When she suspected someone had The Epizootic, her suggested remedy was always the same: “You just need a shot in the tail with hot fat!” she would declare with a twinkle in her eye. (Your compiler declares that a credible threat of a shot of hot lard in the hindquarters would have him stepping snappily and smartly, and rather immediately.)
Your compiler has heard the term pronounced as “epizooty” by a number of folks over the years. While he believes folks raised with that pronunciation ought to continue to use it because it is comfortable and a term they grew up with, he also believes it is a corruption of the real word, “epizootic,” and would never use it, himself.
How widespread the usage of this term is or once was, is something your compiler wonders. He has heard it often enough to believe that it is (or at least once was) rather widespread in his own section of middle Georgia, but he invites readers to comment if they have insights into how widespread it might have been.
Here is what he believes, though, regardless of how widespread the term might once have been: getting the blahs is as dull as our modern name for it sounds – BLAH! Where is the interest in that, or the discussion possibilities? Same with the can’t-help-its — it sounds weak and vacillating, totally devoid of interest. But having The Epizootic: that sounds exotic and interesting – especially if one’s funny maiden aunt is threatening one’s gluteus maximus with a shot of sizzling grease!
