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Last Tuesday I left work a few minutes early and drove to the Leacock Township Administration Building in Gordonville, PA to vote. As a faithful reader of Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com blog, I was fairly confident that my vote was nothing more than a matter of principle. Silver had predicted the day before that Obama would win by a 349-189 margin (as it turned out, the final electoral count was 365-162).

Barack Obama was going to win this thing handily whether I voted for McPalin, Obiden, or Will Ferrell.

Upon arriving at the poll, I was happy to see only a handful of people ahead of me in line. Then I noticed one person in particular, an Amish man, standing there with a boy who was probably his son. This struck me as odd because I assumed that Amish folks didn’t vote. I knew most of them didn’t pay Social Security (or receive its benefits), so I figured they didn’t vote either.

(As it turns out, some of them do vote. According to Erik Wesner’s Amish America blog, voter turnout among the Amish is typically around 10%. It’s a pretty low number, but it’s 10% higher than I thought it was.)

As I approached the registration table, I overheard the poll worker asking the Amish man if he wanted to vote electronically or by paper. I laughed to myself, wondering if the Amish guy was offended by the question. “You keep your cursed voltage away from me! Charged Electrons are the juice of the devil!” I leaned in further to hear his actual response, but unfortunately I could not.

After signing in, I asked to be placed in the electronic voting line and I was given a printed ticket with an access code for the voting machine. The man who handed it to me told me I was next in line, and that I could use the machine as soon as the man currently voting was finished. I looked up and guess who was using the touchscreen in the electronic voting booth?

Well what do you know? I guess watts and amps aren’t the tools of the devil after all!

Tags: Amish, Welcome To Intercourse

I’ve been living in Lancaster County, PA for 10 years now - wow, that’s a long time - and even though I’ve adopted some of the local customs here into my life, there’s one thing I refuse to do, and that’s talk like a local.

Granted, I have adopted some of the local inflections into my speaking voice. That’s pretty hard not to do when you move into an area. But as for the Pennsylvania Dutch sayings that are prevalent around here? Forget it.

Lancaster County Sayings That I’ll Never Incorporate Into My Vernacular

“The car needs washed” - for some reason, people around here think it’s okay to drop “to be” from a lot of their phrases. Erica will say “the laundry needs folded” or “The lawn needs mowed”. Ridiculous.

“the milk is all” - When something is “all” that means it’s empty. This one usually refers to food being empty or gone. I guess it’s short for “all gone”? I mean, really, are we trying to conserve words here or something. “the brownies are all”, “my drink is all”. How about, “my correct usage of the English Language is all”.

“Are you coming with?” - this is the only one I might dare use from time to time. Again, it’s another case of dropping words out that are deemed understood. This time it’s the word “me” that gets left off. If you ever hear me say this, feel free to land a backhand across the side of my face.

“Can you bring me the remote awhile?” - this is foolish. you would think that “awhile” is short for “in a while”, but no. “awhile” actually means now. So if you want something done awhile, you want it done right away. Why not just say “are we leaving now?” instead of “are we leaving awhile?” WHO KNOWS. (I’ve also heard that “awhile” is short for “for a while”…either way it’s just silly)

“What for shoes are those?” - This is THE WORST one of all. In this case “what for” actually means “what kind of”. So if someone says, “what for shirt is that” they mean “what kind of shirt is that” or “what brand of shirt is that”. It’s absurd. I’ve really only heard it used twice in real life. One time I heard an amish man ask someone else “what for muffler do you have on your car?” I thought he was asking what a muffler was for. Turns out he was asking what kind of muffler he had. The other time I heard this was golfing with my bro-in-law Chad a few years ago. He asked me “what for club was that?”, meaning, “Which of your irons did you just use?” I was so confused, I just looked at him with a blank stare for 20 seconds.

Some other expressions that I’ve never heard, but I know exist:

“Outen the Lights” - another way to say ‘turn the lights off.

“When’s it over till?” - a yoda-like way of asking when something is going to be finished.

“Quit yer rutching” - This means “sit still”.

If I’ve missed any, let me know. And if you ever hear me using any of these sayings, you better call me on it.

Tags: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Dutch