Entry · catalog no. 4027
diddy-wah-diddy
/ /ˈdɪdi wɑ ˈdɪdi/ /DID-ee-wah-DID-ee
noun · south · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
In Black Southern folklore, an imaginary faraway place of endless plenty and no labor — the best known of the 'Negro mythical places.' Later a stand-in for anywhere impossibly far off.
“That's way out in diddy-wah-diddy.”
Origin & Attribution
A folk place-name from the rural Black South — Florida especially — where storytellers spoke of mythical cities as if they were real. Diddy-wah-diddy was the grandest: a paradise of plenty. Zora Neale Hurston collected the tales in her folklore work, and the bluesman Blind Blake cut a record carrying the name in 1929.
pre-1900
Circulates as a mythical place in Black Southern folklore
1929
Blind Blake records 'Diddie Wa Diddie'
1930s
Hurston documents the tales in her folklore work
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
south · 1920s
Spoken by
Black Southern storytellers and blues musicians
$DIDDYWThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading97 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
25/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1929
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
"Diddie Wa Diddie" — Blind Blake — song · 1929
researched
■
+ Cite a sourceZora Neale Hurston — folklore fieldwork on Black mythical places — collected writings
researched
See also