Serrancified

[Paul McFedries]

My grandmother-in-law (born and raised in Southern Ontario) often says "my
sufficiency is suffonsified." I thought perhaps she was just mis-remembering
"serrancified" (or whatever), but I found some similar variations:

suffonsified:
http://alongpoetryroad.com/2sides2acoin.html

suffancified:
http://books.dreambook.com/rootslady/outhouse.html

suffulsified:
http://www.citadel.edu/library/knob_m.htm

Here's something from the December 14, 1997 edition of the Chattanooga Free
Press:

A couple of weeks ago, someone commented on the impolite refusal of more
food, "I'm stuffed." Two readers were instructed as to alternative
responses. Say "No, thank you. I've had a plentiful sufficiency; any more
would be a super-abundancy." (The second contains a word we cannot find, but
may have been a made-up family word.) "My sufficiency is ?surrensified?;
anything more would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste."

None of this helps with the origins, but at least you know the phrase has
had a reasonably good career.

Paul

> A subscriber has written as follows to ask about a puzzling bit of
> American dialect usage. Can anyone help?
>
> > It's from Virginia-North Carolina, an older generation, (maybe a
> > hundred years back) and probably from the Appalachians. Three
> > different older friends remember their grandmothers' using it.  It
> > means "I'm full", "I've had plenty to eat".  Phonetically: "My
> > sufficiency is serrancified". Could be "cerr", or one "r", or
> > perhaps never printed! All four of us are curious about its
> > origins.