Sherpt

[Elizabeth Gregory]

This is a real long shot, but maybe it will suggest something to someone more informed than I.

When I was growing up in Alabama (Montgomery, specifically, b. 1962), my cousins taught me the word "sharp" to refer to the shriveled condition of our fingers and toes after we had been swimming or in the bathtub too long.

I have no idea whether they made this up or if they learned it somewhere (it didn't make sense to me at all, but they were older, so of course I assumed they knew what they were talking about).

We never used any form of the word as a verb for this process--it was always just the adjective describing the affected body parts.

FWIW--
Elizabeth Gregory

>>> douglas at NB.NET 02/02/01 09:55AM >>>
>Any guess out there of what "sherpt" is in "her flesh is sherpt away"?
>This was written in Alabama in 1849 in a letter to a brother and
>sister, describing their mother's condition.  The letter is full of
>non-standard spelling, usually somewhat phonetic although sometimes
>in the opposite direction (like "scents" for "sense").  Here's the
>whole sentence:
>
>"Mother is in a bad situation -- she has got no scents at toll worth
>any thing for she perfectly childish in her ways and her flesh is
>sherpt away tel she is a mear skelitan and she keeps her bed constant
>and can not get about at toll."

Just a guess: "sherpt" = "sharped" (OED gives "sherp" as variant of "sharp"
[verb]).

Two possibilities:

(1) "sharped" = "sharpened", or in this context "shaved", with the image of
sharpening a peg, stake, pencil, etc. by shaving off wood;

(2) "sharped" = "stolen", an obsolete sense preserved today as slang
"sharp" = "defraud", "sharper" = "swindler", "cardsharp[er]" = "cheater at
cards".

-- Doug Wilson