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Several readers had fun with a recent column on sayings we seldom hear any more and contributed some that still live in their memories.

"You missed a big one," wrote George L. Eagle, an 80-year-old retired gunnery sergeant from Julian. "How about 'crank the car'?"

It's usually "start the car" now, though some of us old-timers still complain when the car won't crank. The expression, of course, originated in the early days of motoring, before the invention of the self-starter. On the early automobiles, you used a hand crank to start the engine. There was a slot just below the radiator into which you inserted the crank -- a tool consisting of a shaft bent at a right angle, like a huge Allen wrench.

Although the reliable selfstarter eliminated the need for a crank, it didn't eliminate the word. I now crank my car by inserting the key into the slot and twisting it to engage the starter.

Dave Secor of Greensboro remembered several expressions that have faded with age.

"How are you fixed for blades?" used to be a common expression, especially among men who listened to the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The reference, of course, was to razor blades, the safety kind that were good for only a couple of shaves apiece. Gillette advertised its blades with a jingle that began, "How are you fixed for blades?" and ended with, "Gillette Blue Blades, we mean."

Dave also remembers when prosperous people were said to be "living in high cotton." Dave cleaned up the line a bit. My dad used another two-syllable word instead of "living," referring to the degree of privacy tall cotton afforded before portable outhouses.

When fish were jumping and the cotton was high, the living was easy down South. But plummeting cotton prices around 1929 led to the coining of a phrase made popular by folk singer Pete Seegar: "five-cent cotton and 40-cent meat: How in the hell can a poor man eat?"

JL Strickland of Valley, Ala., recalled an earthy phrase his grandparents used when describing a troublesome situation: "The cheese is binding." Cheese tended to have an effect opposite to that of green apples, so when the cheese was binding, Grandma might reach for the castor oil to ease the blockage.

Strickland also remembers the admonition, "You need to get it on a tight pulley," meaning, "You need to hurry up." He speculates that the expression came from the old cotton-mill days, when machinery ran off overhead pulleys. A loose pulley meant slippage, resulting in slow-running machinery.

Speaking of cotton mills, I remember a colorful expression a co-worker of mine used when I was a sweeper in the spinning room at Vaucluse, S.C. I kept the lint swept from half the spinning room and Shorty, a middle-aged guy barely over 5 feet tall, swept the other half.

One day, Shorty failed to show up for work, and my co-worker informed me, "Shorty just doffed off a set of twins."

Doffers were men who would go up and down the rows of spinning frames, removing the full yarn bobbins and replacing them with empty ones. Good ones could doff faster than the eye could follow. Shorty never became a doffer, but he obviously was no duffer when it came to fathering kids.

Strickland claims a share of the credit for coining an expression in the valley of the Chattahoochee along the Georgia-Alabama border.

"Back in the day, there was a famous fortuneteller, Mayhaley Lancaster, who lived in Heard County, Ga.," he said. "Many residents of east Georgia and west Alabama used her services. Kids my age doubted her lauded abilities, and in time, when someone said something we were skeptical of, we would say, 'Aw, mayhaley.'"

I pass no judgment on Lancaster's prowess as a prophet, but note that other names have made their way into folk lingo to indicate unreliable or unbelievable information.

Among them is "buncombe," often shortened to "bunk." The name goes back to Col. Edward Buncombe, a hero of the American Revolution, who was honored by having a North Carolina county named after him. Buncombe County is the home of Asheville, a beautiful city in a scenic mountain setting, which was also the home of novelist Thomas Wolfe. In the early 19th century, its representative in Congress was Felix Walker. When the Missouri Compromise was being debated before a weary House, Walker began delivering a tedious speech that was irrelevant to the discussion. When colleagues protested, he responded that his speech was for his home folks: He was "talking to Buncombe." Ever since, the word "buncombe" has shared its meaning with an expression meaning "cowpies from the male of the species."

"Malarkey" is another word that makes country folk think of bull leavings. The dictionaries throw up their hands in trying to trace its origin. Some researchers say it comes from the Irish "mullachan," referring to a strong boy or ruffian. Others say a bull-shooter named Mullarkey, now forgotten to history and folklore, may have been the source of the word.

Future word sleuths looking for the origin of "mayhaley" need look no further. JL Strickland of Valley, Ala., has told us where it came from, and that's neither buncombe nor malarkey. It isn't even bull.

Write to Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625. E-mail: Swampscum2@aol.com