Pittsburgh reporter needs help

[George Thompson]

I have asked my wife about "Yankee bumps".  She was born and raised in
Elizabeth, Pa, as was her mother, and her father was from not far off,
though I forget where.  She is a graduate of Elizabeth-Forward High
School (class of '60).

She reports that there was a word used in Elizabeth by children when
sledding for a bump that throws the sled into the air, but she forgets
what the word was.  Not, however, "Yankee bump", which she is unfamiliar
with.  She and I both know the term "Thank-you-maam" (clearly
pronounced, unlike "thankymun").  We both take a "thankyoumaam" to be a
quick rise and dip (or dip and rise) in a road which, when riding in a
car travelling at sufficient speed, causes one's guts to be moving in
one direction while one's rib-cage, spine and hip bones are going in the
opposite direction.  We don't associate it with a bump or sharp turn
that throws together people sitting near each other.  This may the be
original sense, though: I suppose that a bump or gulley in a road hit at
the best speed a horse is likely to trot would not produce the sort of
odd feeling in the tummy that little children find so amusing.

I learned "thankyoumaam" in New England in the late 1940s, from my
mother and her aunt, both old-time Yankees.  I do not know "Yankee
bump".

My wife is also ignorant of the area of Elizabeth said to be called
"Yankee Bump Hill".

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.


George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.