Submitted by makerofshoes t3_109uyuy in Maine
Sorry if the wrong place to ask, but my mom spent a bit of time in Maine in the 50’s-60’s. In school, when someone would do something bad, the other kids would all point at them and say something that sounded like “ah va”
She always thought it might be French since they were near the border, but never really knew what it meant. Was wondering whether anyone else could shine some light on it?
Thanks for responding. So it sounds like it might just be kid stuff rather than anything deeper
She moved a lot around the country and noticed that they didn’t say that anywhere else.
Yup. I have only heard it here in Maine and not since I was little (32 here)
I suppose it could have French/ Canadian origins, but they were never acknowledged, not that I was aware of anyway.
My sisters would say "uh-va-va-vahhh!" Just like the other poster said, as a sound that sounds like you are gonna get it!!
Yeah that sounds like the right context. She always just repeated it without knowing what it meant, but she knew when to say it 😆
I always assumed it was a French expression, because I heard it in my heavily francophone area. In my mind it’s like “oh go” or “go on.” Edit: in my mind it’s written “a va”
That was my best guess for a meaning in French as well, but I thought given the context (“uh-oh! Someone’s in trouble!”) it didn’t really fit.
Yeah, totally. Idk sometimes idioms don’t translate literally, or maybe there’s a transient cultural meaning or reference that has been lost to time.
Kinda shooing a troublemaker away? "Ah, go away"
Voyons donc!
It's a real old saying. I've only heard it in Central/Northern Maine. It usually went this way in my family "Ah va! I'm telling Mama!"
Jesus - This just dragged me back to my childhood in lovely Yoonty. I have no idea who taught us this, but my siblings and I all said it when one of would do something (that we most likely would report back to our parents) that was going to end up with an ass whooping.
Wow, flashback. Very prevalent around me in 60’s/70’s and only in Maine. Also assumed Fr/Can from va . Older me saw Oi Vey connection, which doesn’t make much sense for Maine. So I just looked up the German equivalent for the Yiddish word. And… Germans use O weh (which is of Dutch origin) and means “Ouch!” Which…. is exactly what I often heard in France. Ai is for sharp pain, A-wah for anything irritating. The Dutch Weh word lives on in English: a half-century ago in Maine when my big sister told me ”Ah-Vah!” she was actually saying ”Woe is You!”
I remember kids saying this all the time in school. To me it always sounded like they were saying "umm-vah!" or "oom-vah!", and it was always after a kid said or did something they should not have. "ummvah, you're in trouble!" "oomvah, I'm telling the teacher".
I only ever heard it in maine and thought it was a french canadian thing.
I heard it as just ‘fa-ah’. Two syllables. someone broke a rule or got called away for a chat with the teacher. I only heard it from kids.
Now they say ‘bust-Ed’.
Jesus, this takes me back. A girl on my bus in elementary school said that all the time. I never heard it anywhere else, and always just assumed she was stupid.
Funny, now I remember saying that as a child! I haven't heard it in years.
I memba this!!!! We said it in early elementary school when another kid would get in trouble. I'm over 50.
"Ah-vah" was an expression meaning "you're going to be in trouble" I remember well from growing up in Maine in the 70s and 80s. I don't remember hearing it much 90s to now, I actually asked my teen the other day if they'd heard that phrase and they didn't know it at all. Not sure it was related to French or any other language, just a saying.
My mother would say it to us kids in the 80s when she caught us doing something we were told not to, like swearing or lying.
“Ayuh”?
Northern Vermont in the late 70s it was pronounced more like ‘fa fa’….
My sister and I used it often. Not sure of its origin. I hadn't really thought about it much until recently (I am 59). I was wondering if it had roots in Catholicism. Maybe coming from Ave part of Ave Maria. But that is just my own speculation. Interesting to read other people's takes on it.
We kids definitely used "ah va" to indicate you've done something bad and are gonna get in trouble in rural New Hampshire in the 1970s. Could still have originally come from the French, as the area had a lot of French names.
I'm so glad that xperimentalZa mentioned "A Way with Words," a radio show/podcast which I am a co-host of! This "you're in trouble" expression has been a longstanding mystery. Our listeners brought it to us. No reference work or language researcher seems to have looked into it.
The fact that so many of you know it from Maine and nearby states upsets the most current theory that we have! Up until now, all of the reports that we have had from listeners occurred in mountain, southwest, western plains states: New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota.
Our current hypothesis was that it might be a form of Spanish "a ver" which has a number of colloquial meanings in Spanish that include "we'll see" or "we'll find out," and we were guessing that the meaning, when used in a classroom was, "you're gonna find out what kind of trouble you're in." More specifially, "¡Uuuu, vas a ver!" meaning, "Oooooh! You're gonna pay the consequences!"
This hypothesis was plausible because from New Mexico and Arizona northward through the mountain states into Colorado is a history of some of the longest Spanish-speaking traditions in North America, representing, in part, a dialect that isn’t spoken anywhere else, and tied directly into the settlement of the land before both Mexico and the US became countries. There is still a great deal of labor moving between those states and the Spanish-speaking heritage is a part of that.
Listeners who are familiar with this expression have rendered it phonetically a variety of ways: a ver, ah vah, ah ver, ah vers, ahhh ver, uh ver, uh vers, um bers, um ver, umber, umbers, umm brr, umm ver, umm verr, ummbrr.
The V and B are interchangeable in most dialects of Spanish, and are easily mistaken for each other by Anglophones.
HOWEVER. If this classroom "you're gonna get it" sound is also being used in Maine and nearby, that hypothesis is null and void. Since we last talked about this on the show in December (https://www.waywordradio.org/a-ver-umm-ver-trouble-at-school/), we also heard from someone who remembers using it as a child in Virginia (and they have a Mennonite background — some connection to the German mentioned elsewhere in tis discussion?).
Besides the link above, here's another place we talked about the expression on the radio show/podcast: https://www.waywordradio.org/umbers/
I welcome all field reports about it from Mainers and others!
The French expression "ça va" (sah vah) means "it's okay" and it can also be a question meaning "how's it going?"
That's a familiar expression used by the F-C generation before me. Not said so much anymore.
Lol I'm 51and it's showing!
I think it's a weird spelling of ABBA
There is a podcast came A Way With Words that would be perfect. The two hosts are dictionary editors and can tell you, down to the region, the origins of sayings, when it was popular, everything! You should contact them and be on their show!
See my reply elsewhere in the thread!
I was so excited to read your response; I had a chance to catch up on my podcast during a long drive this weekend and heard the episode from December 2022 in which a caller phoned in with this phrase that she had learned as a child in Montana. What a coincidence! I love listening to you and Martha, "A Way With Words" has been a longtime favorite podcast for years.
Heard it all my childhood in the 60s. Early childhood in Northeast Kingdom Vermont. Later childhood in the County. Sounded more like ah fa than ah va to me. Don't know if it was specifically Franco, but obviously most childhood companions were Franco in both places, so . . . related to faux pas, maybe? Said with shocked expression and sharp intake of breath.
Only kids said it, never adults. Clearest memory, someone's little brother clowning around put a rosary around his neck like a necklace. He got ah fa'ed from all sides and his older brother told him Jesus was gonna come and sit on his neck. He took it off immediately.
Anybody else grow up with 'no suh'?
oy veh?
Thats Yiddish
First heard by most Mainers from the lips of Babs Streisand.
"Ah vey" may be F-C but I've heard it most often from elder Jewish folks. Similar to an omg.
Could they have been saying “oy vey” I know that’s a common saying where I’m at (VT) to express dismay/ frustration
I think that one’s pretty universal in the US, this one seemed more localized to ME. Also she is pretty adamant on the pronunciation.
The context doesn’t fit either; oy vey is frustration or dismay like you say, this phrase was used when someone had misbehaved
That’s Yiddish, it’s a common expression among Americans of Ashkenanzi origin
EccentricSoaper t1_j40hl33 wrote
Lol that one stuck around for a while. It's just an onomonopia that denotes someone would get in trouble for something they just did. Like "ooo, you're gonna get it", I grew up with Florida cousins that said "ooo wubbie wubbie" instead lol 😆
Colloquialisms are great! Thanks for the nostalgia