My great-great-grandmother, Ma Jo, had great expressions and was a grand old southern dame. She was 102 when she passed and as full of spitfire then, as the day she was born. She kept a bottle of bourbon in her medicine cabinet, for the polite nip, and smoked a pipe. Some of her favorites were:

"Couldn't pour water out of a boot with the directions on the heel."

"Didn't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of."

And if she was really irritated with someone, they "made my butt want to chew pine rosin."

My paternal grandmother used the term "I Swan" or "I Swannee."

My mother said something is "as hot as hello pete."

I can hear them saying those phrases, even today.