The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56733 Message #1018161
Posted By: PoppaGator
13-Sep-03 - 12:13 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
Subject: RE: Folklore: favorite southern US expression
"Southern US" expressions, huh? Well, a lot of these colorful phrases are not only not-southern (not exclusively, anyway) -- they're not even US (with so many having roots in Ireland/Scotland/England, etc.) -- Doesn't make 'em less entertaining, though, that's for sure.
Some favorites heard in and around my adopted hometown, New Orleans:
Heard from a coworker originally from Oklahoma: "Uglier'n a tree full of owls."
The popular expression "fixin' to" (preparing to / about to) is often contracted hereabouts to "fi'n' to," actually "finnda."
Another local favorite of mine, which perhaps captures the laid-back local attitude as well as anything: "Don't fret your nerves."
Of course, New Orleans is a whole other linguistic melting pot, what with the French transliterations and the Afro-Caribbean influence, etc. Someone already mentioned the characteristic Cajun addition of a pronoun at the end of a sentence ("I'll have some of that boudin, me," etc.). Another holdover from French often heard in the New Orleans area is "making groceries" (for "shopping" or "buying groceries"), from the French "faire marche."
Not southernisms, really, since they don't exist anywhere in the English-settled Bible-belt Protestant South, but only in our little French-settled Catholic area which happens to be located to the immediate south of "The South."
Let me second the endorsement of John Kennedy Toole's "Confederacy of Dunces," a masterpiece of literary humor and a treasure trove of Louisiana linguistic idiosyncracies. Every character represents a different cultural-ethnic constituancy and speaks a different local dialect, and Toole got every one of them down perfectly. Plus, it's hilarious. If you haven't read it yet, do it now!
Pops