Ruffing

Do you know what ruffing is?  Neither did I until a couple of days ago.  The first time I heard someone refer to "ruffing" I thought it might be a new term for rough-housing, that is, the action of children (or even sometimes adult) wrestling and playing rough in the house.  It seemed very odd to me, though, to think that a man who is very ill with stage 4 cancer would be at his home rough-housing with his family.  At least, that was the first context in which I heard the term "ruffing."

I've lived in Indiana for a year and a half now and the language variations between here and my eastern Pennsylvania hometown are becoming less noticeable.  I don't think twice when someone offers my son a "sucker," nor am I as shocked when someone says the "floor needs swept."  The term "ruffing," however, took me by surprise.

After many moments of puzzlement, I finally realized that "ruffing" was the term used to describe fixing the roof of a house....you know, "ROOFing....."  Ruff, roof, what's the big difference, right?  Clearly, it was just too much for my close-minded brain to recognize.  In my mind, it still sounds like people are mimicking a dog's bark, or talking about a wrestling match.  People working on top of a house definitely isn't the first thing I think.

It's easy when we travel to a foreign country to accept any language differences.  But moving just a couple of states over is another thing entirely.  It's like we're in the Matrix and there's a glitch in the system that catches us off guard.  We're walking around, thinking everything is normal and then suddenly someone pulls out the term "ruffing" and our minds are spinning....  is this real?  Are we in the Matrix?  This just isn't normal.  Like the repeat black cat.

Okay, alright, it's not that bad.  But it definitely does catch me off guard.  Obviously I still have much to learn about about Hoosiers.  I wonder how long it will take me to fully understand the local dialect...