Folklore: favorite southern US expression

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 12:42 PM

If you'll notice, the original Carter Family often uses pronunciations or even words out of whole cloth that are now archaic:
Like 'beckon' for 'beacon'
chimley
childern
tavren

y'all when said to one person implies that you are including his or her family at home, as in Y'all come on over tonight. Or Y'all goin' to the picnic?

I mean to tell ya!
dreckly - Ah'll be there dreckly
uglier'n t' south end of a northbound cow
Can you carry me to my Doctor's office?" Makes more sense than to 'drive' me. I always picture someone with a whip, chasin' after me. yeehaw!

In Alaska we say 'down south' for everywhere but north. Heck, to us Minnesota is down south.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Goose Gander
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 08:40 PM

"Ol' Arthur" or "Arthur 'Ritus" = arthritis

As in "Ol' Arthur got hold of me, he gets all of us in the end."

From my Missouri-born grandmother.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 10:21 PM

You might want to look up the book _Texas Crude_, by the former (obSongs) Fug, Ken Weaver.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: He giveth his beloved sleep. :||

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 12:16 AM

Here comes the calvery. Heard from several Georgians. (Cavalry).

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: DannyC
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 11:24 PM

Overheard today as Clemson unsuccessfully closed in on Kentucky (American football - Go Cats!!):

"... coach looks as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full o' rocking chairs."

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Elettra
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 11:59 PM

"Homemade", as in " Y'all quit actin' like you're homemade", insinuating that one's idiotic behavior is caused by one's parents hanging a bit too closely on the family tree. I use this one alot at my place of employment.
Happy New Year to all y'all from alla us down South.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 07:18 AM

As mentioned by a previous posters, redd up is a northern Irish usage; it comes from 'ag réiteach' - 'tidying'; 'réite' - tidy.

This was taken to America by the lowland Scots who had been given land stolen from Irish people in the 'Plantation of Ulster'. These people were devotees of King William of Orange, and when they went to settle the mountainy lands of Virginia, their descendants were labelled 'hillbilly'.

The lowland Scots, of course, were not Gaelic speakers; however, they were always fond of tidying, so they tidied this handy term into their bag and took it with them.

Their descendants must have shed their liking for King William, who was, of course, homosexual, because they've apparently become homophobic.

A term no one has mentioned is 'coosey-eyed' - used by a friend whose family were from the part of America she calls Misery. Apparently it suggests a woman whose looks are a little too sexual, and who is suspected of being free in her ways.

Incidentally, a knitted african is an important character in Stephen King's latest book, Lisey's Story.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 04:22 AM

By the way, here's a test of your American accent. (I did it for fun - I have a Dublin accent - and I come out as 'the Northeast'.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 04:40 AM

'Let's drop these babies anywhere and get back to base'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 07 - 07:21 PM

Okay, didn't see this one here - My Nanny used to say, "Well, guess you fergot ta hold yer mouth rite..." When some attempt comes out wrong. (Cake falls, beans burn, etc...)

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 07 - 08:01 PM

JTT, thanks for the accent quiz link. Pretty funny. I must've been listening to too many Canadians or else my first six months of life really stuck with me up der in North Dah-koe-tah! It says I am North Central, that the folks in "Fargo" probably sounded normal to me!

Funny thing is my old business partner who had a degree in linguistics used to say it drove him nuts trying to figure what it was in the way my brother and I spoke which made us from western Colorado. He could hear we had an accent but he couldn't pinpoint its elements.

Regarding the quix, I am a mynah bird. I think I've lived too many places and picked up on quirks from all.:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 07 Jan 07 - 08:31 PM

I had a friend whose mother (from Arkansas or thereabouts) used to say, "Fetch me to the (grocers,doctor, etc)" when she wanted him to drive her somewhere.
She also used to pronounce a certain metal, "Alunium." Her son would correct her, telling her the pronunciation was "Aluminum." She, after being corrected for the umpteenth time, yelled at him, "God dammit, Raymond, you know I can't say 'aluminum'!" And to the best of my knowledge, she never did again.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,At t'ere good ol
Date: 08 Apr 07 - 10:19 PM

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Right Now I am
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 02:27 PM

busier than a 1 legged man at a butt-kickin' contest.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: mrmoe
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 03:50 PM

my current favorite....."slap tore up"....

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 04:44 PM

For Michael Morris...my Dad used to say "all them Ritis boys's bad, but that Arthur is the worst!"

When my family moved from LA back to Kentucky, I was about 12, and it always felt like going back in time to me. That's when I really got to know my Grandpa. He was from Crab Orchard Kentucky, and had worked most of his life on the L&N railroad. He was a man of few words, but I always liked the way he said "yon." He said yonder, too, but yon always had a medieval feel to it for me. "Ernie...go pick up the rake lyin' over by yon Chestnut tree." That's a word you just won't hear from anyone again.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 11:14 PM

Has anyone mentioned,"Hey, what d'ya want for that fridge on your porch?"

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 12:46 AM

Watch it Jim. Get the dog sicked on ya for that kinda comment.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 05:22 PM

Anybody ever tattled on somebody..."Mama, Jim's not bein' haive!" (behaving). Serious accusation in my neck of the woods.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 06:28 PM

Here's a real Southern one.   "Anjie".   Yep "anjie".

Yore mama "anjie" daddy.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 07:49 PM

My father had a phrase he'd use when describing a hunting trip. He'd say something like, "I went down that holler over behind so-and-so's house and found a good seat on a harrikin, but I didn't see nothing."

I never knew what a "harrikin" was (not even sure how you spell it) until I got old enough to go with my father hunting, then I found out it's a tree that's been blown over by the wind and has a big ball of roots and dirt sticking up that you can hide behind. If the tree's not too big in diameter, you can usually find a nice place to sit that's just about the same height as a chair seat. Some of the older locals in the area where I grew up still use the term.
SC

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,BevT
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 08:22 PM

Heard more than once in north central NC...."My nose is running like a branch" referring to a runny nose being as bad as a creek(branch) running.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Amy
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 02:43 AM

My mom (from Cecil County, Maryland) uses a couple and I'm not sure if they've been posted yet.
"Bless your pea-pickin' heart!"
"It's colder'n a witch's tit outside!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,goodnight gracie
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 10:16 AM

It is encouraging to know that regional accents and expressions live on. My husband and I, a couple of Connecticut yankees, love the fact that our Maryland-born son regularly employs the expression "dang."

Gracie

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 02:33 PM

It had never occurred to me that the very common expression "colder than a witch's tit" might be "southern." I do not believe it is regional at all, but pretty universal once you get outside of "polite society."

I heard it plenty growing up in New Jersey, and as a college student in Indiana, as well as throughout my 35+-year residency in New Orleans, which is geographically "southern" but culturally quite a bit more cosmopolitan than that.

I think you'll hear that phrase in every region of the United States, used by just about anyone who is not reluctant to use language that some might consider crude or vulgar.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: fat B****rd
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:53 PM

Apparently from the late Slim Pickens "Good Bourbon, tight pussy and a warm place to shit"
What do I know, I'm from Cleethorpes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 01:37 PM

I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California. John Steinbeck wrote about the parents of a lot of the kids with whom I grew up in the forties and fifties. I heard a lot of southern and southwestern expressions daily. Some of my favorites:

An affirmative answer - "Jes lak that fly; I speck so."
Describing a miscreant - "Lower than a snake's belly in a wagon track."
Describing an imbecile - "He don't know shit from Shinola."
Bad aim - "He couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle."
Catastrophe - "Lightning struck the shithouse!"
Mock regret - "Don't that take the rag off the bush, though?"
(That one, apparently, has actual roots in cross country travel. One way of marking a trail was to tie a bit of cloth to a limb or twig. If someone wanted to throw you off the trail, they removed the marker).

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 02:33 PM

How about, "The rag on the bush better be a red bandanna!!"

It's about camouflage garments.   ;-)
Art

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 02:37 PM

"It's colder than a teacher's wit!!"

ART THIEME

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 02:39 PM

Keep on the sunny side!---Carter Family

Art

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 02:43 PM

"Pigs ate my roses!"

Sorry about the multiple posts. No sooner than I post one, and I think of another one.

Art

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 03:12 PM

IN her wonderful books about North Carolina called "The Mitford Series", Jan Karpok cites a number of local expressions, my favorite of which is "Well, I'll be et fer a tater!".


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Arkie
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:33 PM

I like the informal approach to measurements:
a bit
a wee bit
a brave wee bit
a tad
a spate
a bait (bate)
a fur piece

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: dwditty
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:38 PM

All y'all

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Becca72
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 05:02 PM

I once heard my friend's Georgian husband say "I'ma fixin' to get ready to carry the dog to the vet". I wasn't sure what was gonna happen or how long it would take! :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,RRS in Alabama
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 05:07 PM

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,RRS in Alabama
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 05:42 PM

A village in Alabama is named "Slapout", for a grocery store there which was often slap out of whatever you wanted.
"As cold as a nun's nook in Nome."
After getting reamed out by your mother for some infraction, my uncle would say: "and besides that, your feet don't match". Or "Guess you heard that, didn't you?".
Going to beat 3: (going to get some bootleg whiskey.)
Uncle also said: "Your nose is a-running and your feets is a-smelling."
"A cup and saucer short of a full set."
He's so ugly he'd back a buzzard out of a meat wagon.
I don't know whether to wind my watch or go blind.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Arkie
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 06:15 PM

RRS, you reminded me of another phrase I have heard all my life no matter where I have lived.

Slap Dab. "Slap dab in the middle".

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 06:43 PM

Now, that's a real stem-winder, in't it?


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,JT
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 08:04 PM

I live in a very rural small town in Kentucky. The phrases are very colorful. They are also adaptive I think linguists call it productive speech. Most of the phrases like "Colder than a well diggers ass." or one of my favorites "Sweating like a whore in church." are embedded deeply and change very little. On the other hand they other phrases are improvised on the spot to fit the implied situation. These phrases are funny but no doubt about it these people are very witty and observant. They have a flair for colorful speech.
Hidy (instead of howdy) when they answer the phone
fair to middlin meaning something or you are ok not real good not real bad. This phrase came from cotton sales that was a mid grade cotton. "How ya doin taday" response "fair to middlin."
"Tolerable" also means ok
"Kickin chicken" means strutting hard cocky
"High steppin" means goin fast or "haulin ass"
"3 sheets to the wind" means very drunk
"drunker than Cooty Brown(or Coooter Brown)" This saying means very drunk as well. Cooter Brown was a man that had kin on both sides fighting in the Civil War. He stayed drunk the entire war so he wouldn't have to fight in it. So this phrase comes straight from "The War of Northern Aggression" no joke it is referred to by this name by some folks.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,RRS in Alabama
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 11:18 AM

Here are some more:
My uncle Laurence ran a movie house in rural Walker and Jefferson Counties, coal mining country in west Alabama He put up "one sheets" advertising with a staple gun. One of the locals saw that thing in action, and said: "I love I had one of them things."

If he had brains he'd be dangerous.    If you put his brains in a peanut shell, they'd rattle around like a coconut in a boxcar.   If his brains wuz red paint, they wouldn't be enough to cover a gnat's ass.

Nervous as a bastard at a family reunion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 11:51 AM

Colder'n - a whore's heart (or well digger's ass)(or a cast iron
          toilet seat)
Hotter'n - Kelsie's nuts (or a two dollar pistol)

Bad aim or eyesight: He couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat!

If brains wuz dynamite, you couldn't blow yer nose!

Meaning indeterminate: "Fixin" - as in, "I'm fixin to do (blank)."
Does it mean planning to do it, thinking about planning to do it, just thinking it over generally or....?

My dad used to refer to "shade tree mechanics," like the fellow a friend ran into in rural Georgia when his Mazda rotary engine gave up the ghost. He was towed into a little crossroads town by a local mechanic. When he looked under the hood, he threw up his hands and said, "Hell's fire, mister; I cain't fix this thang - it ain't got no pistons in it!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,JT
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 02:34 PM

Shade tree mechanics oooh yeah. If you are looking for a deal and are brave that's who you use. Shade tree refers to someone that works on cars in thier spare time. They may be employed as a mechanic or not but it is only part time for them.
a butt bustin is a spanking
butt whoopin is getting beat up in a fight or "scrap"
I declare means you are telling the truth or your surprised
I suwanee mean I swear
I don't mind to means you will do it no problem.
I worked in a Lab for a company that moved into Western Kentucky from Utah. That was a big misunderstanding for those people that moved in here from there. Someone would ask "Would someone get me a sample?" and the auditor (who collected samples) would respond " I don't mind to." It would register to the guys from Utah as I don't want to. lol
Hoggin is catching a catfish with your hands called noodling some places
Haint is a ghost
hog heaven is being very happy " I got a new truck and a pocket full of cash I'm in hog heaven."
a box is a guitar "I'll tell you what that boy can thump that box."
Thump in that last sentence means pick or play the guitar
Thump also means beat up "That dude got to sassing him and he straight up thumped him."
Sass or sassing means smart talking

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: PoppaGator
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:04 PM

A co-worker from Oklahoma once told me a great expression from back home:

"Uglier than* a tree full of owls."

Oklahoma may or may not be "southern" ~ it can be classifeid as "southwestern" or "great plains" ~ but it sure is rural, which I believe qualifies it for this discussion.

If I posted this already, a year or more ago, please excuse me. I haven't re-read through the entire thread this time...

*actually pronounced "Uglier'n," not really "than"...

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: Amos
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 10:04 PM

A mess of phrases from Nawth Carolina:

"Will you ride to to town with me in the morning?"
Answer: If I'm not too give out."

No rest for the wicked.
Answer: "And the righteous don't need none."

"Hey!"

"For a fact, ...." (meaning, "In fact")

"We hightailed it up...."

"I was bad to drink, myself"

I rode the hair off that horse.

God don't make junk.

I don't know what all.

I want to wear these shoes. They was give to me.

He studied whether to keep it.

.... whenever the notion struck.

It was a treat better than....

They wasn't nothin' in it to speak of.

I'll be et for a tater

That drawin' you do, hits mortal. Hit's from the lord.

I can learn myself to read and write.

He'd never given Joe a dadjing thing before.

Hain't room enough t' cuss a cat without gittin' fur in y'r teeth.

Feelin' rough as a cob

washed into the neighbor's ha-ha

[agitated; excited] He looked like he was sent for and couldn't go.

If i wasn't one thing, it was two

Lord he'p a monkey!

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST,Larry
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:50 AM

"Cuter'n a speckled pup in a little red wagon."

"Slicker'n greased owl shit."

"He needed killin'." (Said by Texas sheriffs to prosecutors who needed background to detemine whether to file murder charges."

"California Quickstep" term used by expatriate Southerners and Easterners in California for what in the South would be called "a case o' th' runs".

"You kin have my gun when you pry it outa my cold, dead fingers."

"Confabulation" Talk-fest.

"Dimbulb" Someone who's not too smart.

"Dimbulbs (R)" An informal writers' group in Texas.

"Ain't th' brightest bulb in th' chandelier."

"You'll think a ton of brick done fell on ya." John Wayne as "Rooster Cogburn".

"Th' Shurf got me for drivin' one a them ol' drunk cars."

"We done broke his plate and sawed his corner off the table." said of a late teenager whose parents decided it was time for him to be on his own.

"Her watermelons hang low to the ground." Said of a very obese woman, walking away.

"Like two pigs in the same sack." Same definition as 'watermelons'.

"I'm about thought out, here." Gettin' close to bedtime.

Larry

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:25 PM

"Ain't got room enough to change your mind."

Nothing that remarkable about what the Texas sherriff told the DA ~ some folks needs killin'!

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: DannyC
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 07:55 PM

'ere's a couple of 'em here

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: DannyC
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:01 PM

Transplanted Somerset England musician - John Skelton - tells me of a neighbor in his Kentucky hollar proclaiming (about a 'wealthy' relation), "That woman has so much cash money, she could dry a wet mule over a wood fire."

Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 02:41 PM

Dull as a froe (really dull)
Fine as frog hair, split four ways and sanded (very fine)
sharp as a tack (very smart)
Uglier 'n sin (extremely ugly)
Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (very nervous)
Pant'n like a road lizard (breathing really fast)
Barkin up the wrong tree (asking the wrong questions, or accusing the wrong person)
Cute as a button (very cute, usually a baby)
running around like a chicken with its head cut off (going from thing to thing without getting anything done)