There is an all-purpose phrase used almost exclusively in Aroostook County to describe everything from a dimwitted brother-in-law to a malfunctioning pickup truck – an expression which, expertly employed, indelibly marks those who use it as true sons and daughters of The County.

I speak of the unique utterance that – in polite company such as the readership of this fine family newspaper – is probably best translated as “son of a prostitute,” a rendering which unfortunately saps most of the pizzazz from the real thing, which is why the real thing is preferred in the company I keep.

Most non-natives never do get the hang of the expression’s proper usage, especially the plural of the form, and their occasional sorry attempts to do so irrevocably brand them as being from away. It’s “hahd,” as my friends from down Tenants Hahbah way might put it.

But when they do understand the proper syllabic emphasis and all the nuances, when they get it right, their credibility with the natives takes a dramatic upturn.

Thanks to retired Orono High School teacher, author and current University of Maine part-time lecturer Sandy Phippen of Hancock, who appreciates Maine’s delightful regional expressions as well as anyone, I have just been introduced to such a person, via print.

She is Angela M. Weiler of Syracuse, N.Y., whom Phippen taught at Syracuse University 30-some years ago. Weiler’s 163-page softcover book, “Going Up The Country,” published by Log Cabin Books, arrived earlier this week from Phippen. A note indicated he suspected that County people might find it a great stocking-stuffer for Christmas, which, in case you haven’t noticed, looms menacingly on the calendar.

Weiler, who works at the Onondaga (N.Y.) Community College Library, spent several years in the 1970s as a back-to-the-land idealist in the Island Falls area. The book, a fictionalized account of that experience, carries the usual disclaimer that “any similarity to actual events and people is coincidental.” Should some residents of the southern Aroostook area find that the coincidences with their own experiences are uncanny I doubt they will object much, considering the author’s artful and generally good-natured portrayal.

“Most people from ‘away’ know the Land of Vacations for its scenic coastline, and they forget about that big empty-looking area sitting at the top of the map of Maine – if they ever noticed it at all,”‘ begins one chapter of the book. Then the author launches into a tale of the joys and discomforts of life in a small Maine mill town dependent upon a single major employer to keep the economy humming. Picking potatoes on a frosty fall morning, the grueling routine of woods work, man’s often ill-concealed prejudice against minorities, and Joe Sixpack’s struggle to make ends meet are among themes in these up-country tales featuring the voice of a different character in each chapter.

Like her mentor, Phippen, Weiler writes with a fidelity to real life and to accurate representation of ordinary folks, without idealization. If you don’t recognize the people she writes about – the Maine guide and the big-city sports he entertains at hunting camp, the good ol’ boys out raising hell on a Saturday night, and yes, the pitiful victims of unfathomable domestic violence – you simply have not been paying attention.

In a chapter titled “Long Haulers,” a character named Nora tells about her friend, the fun-loving Loretta, and the time they drove to Bangor for girls’ night out in a bright red Lincoln convertible Loretta’s husband had given her on their 20th wedding anniversary: “Now I don’t know what that man was thinking, giving Loretta her own brand new car, and a red Lincoln convertible at that. Might as well give an arsonist a box of matches.” Not that she felt particularly sorry for the [colorful County characterization], seeing as how he was old enough to know better.

At an I-95 truck stop Loretta strikes up a conversation with a long-haul trucker she has known in the past. “Well, sir, watching those two I knew right then and there that he was coming with us, big rig or no big rig. So he went back and fetched his beer and his bottle of Black Velvet and his tapes and locked up his truck, and then we all hopped into the Lincoln … and off we went down the road.” Nora says she never minded much sitting in the back seat when Loretta took a shine to some man, “because no matter what, I knew I was gonna have a good ol’ time.”

And so did I, once I saw that the author could speak fluent Aroostook.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.