4 Things Mainers Say That Mean the Opposite

Maine’s “Down East” sounds like a trip south.

Take its other sayings at face value, and you may get the meaning backward.

These are the things many Mainers say that mean the opposite.

1. “Cunnin’”

“Cunnin’” sounds like a word for a schemer.

If someone aims it at your child, you might brace for an insult.

You can relax.

The Portland Press Herald’s lingo glossary says the word means your kid is cute, not wily, crafty or sneaky.

The Maine Mag glossary defines it as “cute or adorable” and notes it often comes with a pinch on the cheek.

2. “Chummy”

Would you take “chummy” as a compliment?

Merriam-Webster defines it as “quite friendly,” so that’s a fair guess.

Not so fast.

A 2000 feature in the Christian Science Monitor describes it as an unfriendly way to address obnoxious out-of-staters.

The word came up when humorist Tim Sample and Robert Bryan reprised their album, How to Talk Yankee, by illustrating its terms.

3. “Can’t Miss It”

Someone Down East typically ends directions to a tourist with “can’t miss it,” the Press Herald glossary notes.

It sounds like a promise.

The entry’s loose translation is bleaker: You won’t find the place, “chummy.”

A 2022 Lewiston Sun Journal column repeats that translation and credits it to humorist John McDonald.

4. “Down East”

“Down East” began as a sailing direction, not a place name.

If you sailed to Maine from Boston, you headed downwind and east.

On a map, that trip runs northeast along the coast, not south.

The prevailing winds along that coast blow from the southwest in the warm months, so ships from Boston could run downwind.

So “down” meant downwind.

Merriam-Webster defines it as in or into the northeast coastal section of the United States and dates the word to 1819.

Sayings That Stretch, Not Flip

Some sayings stretch a meaning instead of reversing it.

“Not far” may be the whole answer when you ask how far it is to Bangor.

The Press Herald’s lingo glossary jokes that “far” can mean anywhere from one mile to 500 miles.

If you press for the mileage, the joke is that you hear “not far” again.

That leaves you no closer to the mileage.

Pack snacks.

If you hear “gettin’ by,” you’d guess money is tight.

Not always.

The phrase can describe any income, from poor to well off.

For a mill worker, it probably means making enough to pay the bills.

The entry jokes that, for a lobster fisherman, it means he’s about to pay cash for a $40,000 pickup.

Words and Names That Mislead

“Wicked” sounds like the last word that belongs near a compliment.

It doesn’t reverse anything.

A 2012 Bangor Daily News glossary lists it as a synonym for “very,” as in “wicked cool” or “wicked jerk.”

Down East magazine says you may hear “wicked” now and then, either to intensify an adjective or on its own.

Merriam-Webster dates that adverb sense to 1960, with examples like “wicked fast” and “wicked expensive.”

Place names can trip you up too.

West Quoddy Head Light is Maine’s easternmost lighthouse.

The state park around it sits at the tip of America’s easternmost peninsula.

You reach it four miles off Route 189 in Lubec.

The name starts with “West.”

The first light there was built in 1808, and the present tower dates to 1858.

Other local words get a joke instead of a definition.

Tourist-season words get a translation in humorist John McDonald’s glossary, which the Press Herald excerpted.

In it, “shoulder season” is a polite name for the weather you’d rather avoid.

The same glossary jokes that Labor Day was invented to get rid of tourists.

The joke goes that old furniture counted as junk until out-of-staters started buying it.

Then it became “antiques.”

Fog gets a joke too, as a local weather event that drives tourists into gift shops and malls.

A Record Behind a Famous Line

A 2000 Christian Science Monitor feature credits a record, Bert and I, with making “you can’t get there from here” famous.

The Maine Mag glossary translates the line as a local’s reluctance to give you directions.

The spelling varies, too.

The 2022 Sun Journal column spells the line “you can’t get they-ah from he-ah” and pairs it with Aroostook County.

The record includes a story about a local who realizes it’s impossible to explain the way to Millinocket to a visitor.

You can trace Bert and I to Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan, two Yale students who bonded over Maine folklore in the late 1950s.

Neither came from Maine.

They made 50 copies for friends before an independent record producer agreed to distribute the album.

Humorist Tim Sample credits the album with putting Maine humor on the map.

Inland Exception

Storyteller Kendall Morse splits Maine humor by geography in that same 2000 Monitor feature.

In his view, coastal humor tends to be deadpan and restrained.

Inland, he says, tall tales turn up more often.