[Lexicog] plough mud

[David Frank]

I was in Charleston, SC, last week, a friend of mine who is a researcher and an author but not a linguist asked me to help make some sense out of the term "plough mud," pronounced and sometimes spelled "pluff mud." You can do a Google search if you want to see more about how the term is used. This term seems to be local to Charleston.

Plough mud is dark brown silty mud that reportedly can be used as fertilizer. I was asked whether perhaps "plough" (plow) was pronounced a couple hundred years ago with an /f/ sound at the end, rhyming with English "rough." I said that I didn't know, but I would try to find out.

What we do know is that "plough mud" and "pluff mud" refer to the same thing, and that the latter spelling is more representative of its pronunciation.

What we don't know is if this term really had anything to do with plowing. That could be a folk etymology.

Another thing I don't know is whether "plough" was ever pronounced, in the past, perhaps dialectally, like "pluff." It is a reasonable guess, based on analogy with "rough," but a reasonable guess isn't good enough. In fact, the little bit of etymological research I have done has not shown that to be a pronunciation.

Does anyone reading this know the answer? Or else, does anybody know how to find out the answer?

-- David

 

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