The ice-fishing derby on Contoocook Lake was in full swing last week, putting those less hearty to shame as we pull our armchairs closer to our wood stoves. Seeing these intrepid anglers out on the ponds makes me think about what they might be wearing on their feet to keep from slipping. At home, we’ve got several pairs of “yak tracks” — the brand name. The rubber edges stretch over the soles of your shoes, and the stainless-steel coils dig into the ice as you walk. These devices are sold under a variety of names like “ice trax,” “ice cleats,” or “ice spikes,” but in the old days, they called them “creepers,” and maybe some of you still do. They strapped onto your boots and had iron teeth instead of the coils, but they served the same purpose: to keep you from slipping and breaking a bone or two on the ice. Years ago, they weren’t only ice fishing, they were harvesting blocks of ice for the year with large ice saws and ice tongs, then hauling them to ice houses where they would be packed with sawdust to keep them from melting. Without the creepers, it would have been hard to do all this. I’ve been trying to bring the word “creepers” back in my family, but not getting much — if you’ll forgive me — “traction.”
“Creepers” has been used for other things over the years. These days, “creepers” show up
as a kind of sock, a kind of shoe, the plants from Virginia, of course, and the wheeled platform you lie on to work under a car. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a “creeper” was also a frying pan in parts of Massachusetts, for a reason I will explain in a future column. I remember coming across an additional meaning when we took our 6-month-old daughter to see my family, and my grandfather’s new wife asked me if she was “creeping” yet. I was surprised: I’d never heard “crawling” referred to as “creeping,” but it was very common all through the Northeast and even beyond as late as the 1960s. Is it still in use today, or, as is usual, has it been supplanted by its competitor? In this case, if it has been sidelined, I would suspect it’s because of the negative connotations. Someone who creeps is “creepy,” and a man who is acting weird in a leering kind of way is a “creep.”
Then we come to the “creepers” of the title of this piece, the title of that old 1938 song,
memorably sung by Louis Armstrong. Probably many of you have figured out where that
comes from. We all need “wow words” — phrases that suddenly jump out of our mouths in
reaction to unusual circumstances, both good and bad. “Jeepers-creepers!” is a way to show
your surprise or your horror without taking the name of the Lord in vain. Some call them
“minced oaths” and there is no shortage of them, a good indication of how useful they are as we go about our business. From the Adirondacks to Maine, northern New England is very fond of “Jeezum Crow,” (the state bird of Vermont, according to some), and who can forget Dorothy’s “Jiminy Crickets” when the Wizard of Oz scares the be-jeepers out of her. Whatever euphemism you choose — even Jeez! or Cripes! — it’s kind of like having your cake and eating it too: you get to explode verbally as the occasion demands while staying just this side of the Second Commandment.
Dale Coye is a member of the American Dialect Society. He has taught English and the humanities at several universities and worked in area theaters as a dialect coach and director. He grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and now lives in Wilton.
Do you have a word that you’d like to know more about? Email news@ledgertranscript.com with WORDS in the subject line and we’ll get your word to Dale.