Appalachian Word of the Week -- MASH

There are several definitions of the word MASH. However, today, I'm going to talk about one use of the word I remember from my childhood.

Of course, we've all heard about the kind of MASH when we're cooking -- like MASH taters. Some people even mash turnips. Pretty disgusting when you serve someone mashed turnips without telling them they are turnips and not taters, though. I remember the first time I bit into a big bite of mashed turnips. I thought the potatoes had either gone bad or they'd been poisoned.

Many of us are also familiar with corn MASH -- used in the making of white lightning or moonshine. Needless to say, I have no first-hand knowledge of that process.

The kind of MASH I'm referring to is when you take your finger and MASH something.

Way back when our light switches didn't have a flip switch to turn the lights on and off. They had two buttons. And we would take our finger and MASH one button to turn the light on or MASH the other button to turn the light off.

MASH the button

Basically, any time we used our finger to activate something with a button we would MASH the button. Some examples are ringing the doorbell (if you were citified enough to have one), selecting a pop in the Coke machine, or choosing a snack in the vending machine.

For push-button phones, we MASHed the buttons to make a call. When computers came onto the scene, we mashed a button to turn it on or off. TVs also had a button to MASH to turn it on or off. Today, we can do that from our easy chair by way of a remote or cell phone. At least our finger can still get some exercise.

MASH the buttons on the phone

There are so many things to MASH today. But, the term MASH is not heard as often. I guess we have so many options in technology that we've re-learned the lingo. We push, tap, click, or press nearly every gadget we possess.

I suppose we can still MASH a bug, though.






Did you or your family use the word MASH? What word do you use today?

I'd love to hear your stories.