9 Vermont Sayings That Leave Out-of-Staters Completely Lost
Ask for soft serve at a Vermont farm stand, and you’ll get a polite, confused pause.
Vermonters have a whole vocabulary that never shows up on menus or road signs, and the quickest way to get spotted as an out-of-stater is to guess.
Here’s what the sayings mean, so you can order, ask for directions and chat like you’ve been in Vermont a while.
1. Flatlander
Flatlander is the word locals use for anyone who wasn’t born and raised in the state, mountains or no mountains involved.
It has nothing to do with elevation.
A transplant who’s lived in the Green Mountains for thirty years, on the steepest hillside in the county, is still a flatlander to a lot of longtime Vermonters.
Only being born there gets a person out of it, and even that has its debates.
No exceptions.
2. Creemee
A creemee is the local name for soft-serve ice cream, and asking for “soft serve” at a farm stand gets a polite, confused pause.
Maple creemee is the flavor that separates a local stand from a chain.
It’s made with maple syrup swirled into the base, not maple flavoring, and locals can tell the difference in one lick.
One flavor rules here.
3. Dooryard
A dooryard is the patch of ground right outside a home’s door, the spot where trucks park and boots get kicked off.
It isn’t the whole yard.
A Vermonter telling a visitor to pull into the dooryard means the gravel or dirt patch by the entrance, not the lawn out front or the field out back.
4. Jeezum Crow
Jeezum Crow is the exclamation an old-school Vermonter reaches for instead of anything profane.
It works for shock, frustration, and mild delight, all with the same two words.
An out-of-stater hearing it for the first time usually assumes it’s a joke, right up until they hear a local grandmother use it straight-faced over a dropped casserole dish.
No cursing required.
Psst! How much do you know about the state’s history and quirks? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Vermont History & Quirks Quiz
How much do you know about Vermont history and quirks? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Before joining the United States, Vermont existed as an independent republic. For roughly how many years?
5. You Can't Get There From Here
"You can't get there from here" is the classic answer a Vermonter gives when a visitor asks for directions on a confusing back-road route.
It sounds like a joke.
Half the time, it's the honest truth. Back roads twist around mountains instead of over them.
The shortest route on a map is sometimes the longest one to drive.
6. Mud Season
Mud season is the stretch between winter and spring that many people count as a separate season, right alongside fall and summer.
Nobody plans anything.
Dirt roads thaw from the top down, turning into axle-deep mud that can swallow a truck tire.
Rural Vermont schools have delayed opening over roads too soft to drive.
7. Woodchuck
Woodchuck in local slang has nothing to do with the animal digging under the porch.
It's the term for a resourceful, rural, old-Vermont type: The neighbor who can fix a tractor, tap a maple tree, and tell a decent story, all before lunch.
Calling someone a woodchuck can be a compliment or a jab depending on who's saying it and how they say it.
Context is everything.
8. The Kingdom
The Kingdom, said with no other words attached, means Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the rural, heavily forested corner up near the Canadian border.
An out-of-stater hears royalty.
A Vermonter hears three counties, Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans, and knows exactly how far that person is about to drive to get there.
9. Leaf Peeper
Leaf peeper is the term for a tourist who drives up for fall foliage season and not much else.
The term isn't always affectionate.
A local stuck behind a car braking every ten feet for a photo of orange trees knows exactly who's driving, long before they see the out-of-state plate.
Why One State Has So Many Words Like This
Vermont's entire population is smaller than many single cities in other states.
Small, spread-out communities tend to hang onto local words longer than big cities do. There's less outside noise diluting them.
A phrase coined in one hill town can stay in daily use for generations without ever needing to travel far enough to get worn down into something more generic.
What Gives a Flatlander Away Fastest
Vermont's single 802 area code covers a state many out-of-staters underestimate the size of.
That's exactly why the local words never got the chance to spread thin.
Mispronouncing a town name does it faster than any of these words ever could.
Calpurnia, Charlotte, and Barre all have local pronunciations that don't match how they're spelled.
Spelling won't help.
A visitor confidently saying them wrong gives them away just as fast.
Ordering a creemee correctly on the first try buys back a little credibility.
None of these nine sayings show up in a Vermont tourism brochure.
They're just what gets said around the dooryard on any ordinary day.
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