March 4, 2006

• True Southener

  Herb Wooten sent me the following list, and it is wonderful. Lorena will enjoy this because she had become a Southerner with a Mexican accent who could pick and cook a mess of collards, poke salat, black-eyed-peas, or catfish with the best of them and who (after laughing at the colloquialisms initially) adopted those wonderful terms "y'all" and "fixin' to" and used them like a native.  [She was also a master of the chicken fried steak with gravy and made-from-scratch biscuits.]  She had to learn to be a Southerner, of course, but she was a fast learner.  Folks still laugh about her encounter, shortly after we moved to Texas from Germany, in a TSU class when the professor used the word "redneck", and Lorena, new to Texas, asked what a redneck was.  A fellow student pointed at another student, laughed, and said, "He is a redneck!" whereupon Lorena got out of her desk and went over to inspect the other student's neck to the vast amusement of her classmates.   But she now knows exactly what a redneck is, what poor (and, yes, here our "r"s are hard) white trash is, and she has a handwritten invitation to join the KKK.  [I never received an invite, but I always teased her that she should have gone down to ask about joining.  I think that would have been a hoot with her accent...]
  

  
  

  
  

   

  
  

   Southernisms
   
    1.) Only a true Southerner knows the difference between a hissie [hissy] fit

  
  

    and a conniption, and that you don't "HAVE" them, -- you "PITCH"
    them.  [Several of you have emailed, and Mrs.Tiggy_Winkle has asked in a comment, what the difference in a hissie (fit) and a conniption (fit) is.  Both of the terms may be used with or without the word "fit".  The difference is in magnitude and type of emotion.  A conniption (fit) is a fit of violent emotion sure as anger or panic, such as a fit of apoplexy, whereas a hissie (fit) is a temper tantrum, usually used for a petty or trite tantrum.  In this area of Texas, we usually "throw" our fits although many of the younger folks now "have" their fits.  Actually, many of the younger folks now "have a cow" as in, "I know I have a twenty pound barbell stuck through my nose, Mama, and you can't understand me because of the one through my tongue, but don't have a cow.] 
   
    2.) Only a true Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens,
    turnip greens,peas, beans, etc. make up "a mess."
   
    3.) Only a true Southerner can show or point out to you the general
    direction of "yonder."  [I won't get into the intricacies of "over yonder", "over yonder a little ways", "over yonder a ways", or "way over yonder."  It could also be "over yonder a piece" or "over yonder a little piece."]
   
    4.) Only a true Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is - as

  
  

    in: "Going to town, be back directly."  [This was a favorite idiom of my Grandma Thomas, and until I learned better in school, I thought it was it was spelled "dreckly" as in "I'll do it dreckly" or "We'll be there dreckly."  (Of course, I also knew that "far place" was where we built a "far" when the weather go cold, and the smoke went out the chimbley.)]
   
    5.) All true Southerners, even babies, know that "Gimme some sugar"
    is not a request for the white, granular, sweet substance that sits
    in a pretty little bowl on the middle of the table.  ["Sugar" can be either singular or plural, by the way, so we and babies were always exchanging "sugars."  "Sugar" was lovin', specifically a kiss, so kisses were "sugars".]
   
    6.) All true Southerners know exactly when "by and by" is.
     They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.  [Actually, it is never "by and by", but, rather, it is "by 'n' by", usually to the point of being "bine by".]
   
    7.) Only a true Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture

  
  

    of solace for a neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried
    chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. (If the neighbor's
    trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana
    puddin'!)  [I grew up helping to deliver food to all the neighbors every time there was a death, a major illness or injury, a birth, or any kind of other major event in their family.  The girls did not have to cook here for months after Lorena's stroke, with loads of banana puddin' included in those deliveries, and folks still occasionally bring food by.  (Thank you, Diana Locke.)  One little correction, though; true Southerners don't eat potato salad.  We eat "tater salad" .]
   
    8.) Only true Southerners grow up knowing the difference between
    "right near" and "a right far piece." They also know that "just down

  
  

    the road" can be 1 mile or 20.  [Actually, it's usually a "fur piece", but PETA don't mind none.  "Far" is usually in the "far place", remember, unless it's a "wald far".]
   
    9.) Only a true Southerner both knows and understands the difference

  
  

    between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.
   
    10.) No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the
    flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.  [And he must assume that the car with no turn signal on will .]
   
    11.) A true Southerner knows that "fixin'" can be used as a noun, a
    verb, or an adverb.  [The noun form is usually "fixin's" as in, "I'd like a hamburger with all the fixin's."  Often the verb form is actually "a-fixin'" as in, "We better bring the clothes in 'cause it's a-fixin' to rain."]
   
    12.) Only a true Southerner knows that the term "booger" can be a
    resident of the nose, a descriptive [as in "that ol' booger"], a
    first name (usually a nickname), or something that jumps out at you in the dark and scares you senseless.  [Quite often, the latter is a "booger bear.]
   
    13.) Only true Southerners make friends while standing in lines. We
    don't do "queues"; we do "lines," and when we're "in line," we talk
    to everybody!
   
    14.) Put 100 true Southerners in a room, and half of them will
    discover they're related, even if only by marriage.  [And the ones that aren't related will all know kinfolks of the others.]
   
    15.) True Southerners never refer to one person as "y'all."  ["You" is always singular.  "Y'all" is plural.  If you really want to distinguish between groups or to express emphasis to a group, the proper term is "all y'all" or "all o' y'all" or "y'all all" as in "Y'all all git on outta here now and fight that there wald far" or "All y'all who brung bananer puddin' remember to gitcher dishes."]
   
    16.) True Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.  (I will date myself here, but I was six years old or so the first time a neighbor came by selling the periodical (newspaper?  magazine?) Grit.  It was just a newspaper-like periodical, but I thought it must be about food...]
   
    17.) Every true Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits,
    and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that redeye gravy is also a
    breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast
    food.
   
    18.) When you hear someone say, "Well, I caught myself lookin' .. ,"

  
  

    you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!
   
    19.) Only true Southerners say "sweet tea" and "sweet milk." Sweet
    tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it - we do not like our

  
  

    tea unsweetened. "Sweet milk" means you don't want buttermilk.  [As I was growing up, we always had "milk cows" [as opposed to beef cattle which one would never milk] (We never had "milch cows" as agricultural literature always refers to them.)  Sometimes, if the cows ate certain plants, a strong, unpleasant taste would be imparted to the milk so that the mild would be "weedy."  Then, when the milk started to go bad, it would be "blinky".  "Sweet milk" was used to denote fresh whole or skimmed milk as opposed to either "clabber" or, better yet, as far as I was concerned, buttermilk (which always had flecks of real butter in it from the churning.)  Bought buttermilk today is much more like clabber than it is to real buttermilk.  It has been a coon's age since I have had real buttermilk.  One of my father's favorite suppers (eaten at the end of the day, because dinner was eaten at noon) was [pan-fried] cornbread and sweet milk.]
   
    20.) And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at
    little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say,
    "Bless her heart" and go your own way.  [Often aspects of the harvest would be involved in this benediction as in "Bless her little pea-pickin' heart," or "Bless his little cotton-pickin' soul."

  • 11:53 pm
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