Talk Southern to Me Page 6

  But what makes Southern women sneaky dangerous is the fact that their outrage doesn’t always manifest in an obvious, explosive way. Southern women are creative spitfires. Before my parents were married, Daddy sent Mama a dozen roses. At the time, Daddy worked at a Texaco station, and when Mama went by to thank him for the flowers, she found another girl there visiting him. Mama left quietly without causing a scene. After the roses had completely died, she had them delivered back to Daddy with the message “Please shove these up your ass.”

  Hell hath no fury like a Southern woman scorned.

  Also, back when they were dating Mama spotted Daddy’s car in the Hardee’s parking lot. As she got closer, she noticed there was girl in the car with him and they were clearly enjoying each other’s company. So Mama decided to surprise them. She jerked open the car door, jumped into the passenger seat beside this girl and cheerfully said, “Hey, how are y’all doing?” Daddy was so unnerved, he put his car in drive rather than reverse, jumped the curb and crashed his car into an obstruction. Hell hath no fury like a Southern woman scorned.

  After being scorned in college, I made an earnest attempt to tame my temper and enrolled in an anger management course. But even with the tools I acquired, I’m not always successful at wrangling my Southern ferocity. I’m not proud of this fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. Because I’m from Gaffney, South Carolina, when I blow a gasket my friends jokingly say, “Julia’s going Gaffney.” This happened recently. I was at a beach bar grabbing lunch with my friend Kat when a strange man, we’ll call him Drunky McDoo, rolled up and had the gall to stick his grimy fingers in my chips and salsa and help himself to a bite. Remembering my anger management skills, I politely asked Drunky McDoo not to do that again. He then proceeded to knock over my drink. So I took a deep breath and calmly asked Drunky McDoo to please go away.

  If a Southern woman says, “Oh, hell no,” it’s already too late.

  Instead, Drunky McDoo saddled up in the seat next to me and helped himself to another bite of my chips, dragging the guacamole all into the salsa—my pet peeve. So I sternly said, “Sir, you’re drunk and belligerent and I need you to back off.” Drunky McDoo spit in my face while responding, “I think you need to back off!” In the blink of an eye, I was “Going Gaffney,” screaming the words you never want to hear a Southern woman say, “OH, HELL NO!” I jumped up and hollered, “Get away from me right now or I’ll knock your teeth so far down your throat you’ll have to spit ’em out single file!” He was in total shock that a woman would be so brash. My tirade drew the focus of the entire bar, so, thankfully, the staff quickly responded. The bartenders threw Drunky McDoo out and then the manager amusingly inquired if I had any interest in a job as the bar’s bouncer. Please be advised: if a Southern woman says, “Oh, hell no,” it’s already too late.

  Of course, anger is not the only emotion us Southerners theatrically express. Take the popularity of “haint blue” porch ceilings throughout the South. This is a historical, concrete manifestation of fear. These ceilings are particularly prevalent in cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, because that’s where Gullah culture originated. The Gullah people are descendants of African slaves from various tribes who lived in the Lowcountry regions of the Southern United States. In the Gullah dialect, “haunt” sounds like “haint” and Gullah culture asserts that restless spirits known as “haints” can’t cross over water. So porch ceilings were painted a symbolic light blue to keep spirits from entering the house. Paint companies capitalized on the South’s determination not to have their houses haunted, and nowadays a Southerner can purchase paint in a variety of “Ghostbuster” blue shades to assuage their fear.

  Truth be told, we Southerners tend to go over-the-top when expressing a multitude of emotions, and we have plenty of colorful Southernisms to precisely describe how we’re feeling. This is easily illustrated on any given Saturday down South during college football season, where one can blatantly observe Southern fans going through a plethora of emotional histrionics. Their team will have them nervous as a frog on a freeway, and then a shocking play will surprise them and they’ll scream, “Well don’t that just beat a hog flyin’!” They’ll be happier than a duck on a June bug right up until the moment their team loses the game with a disastrous play. Then they’ll bury their heads in their hands, displaying the kind of visible grief usually reserved for a terminal cancer diagnosis. Clinically depressed, they’ll spend the following week moping around, feeling lower than a snake’s belly right up until the following Saturday, when they’ll return to the football stadium more excited than a granny at a yard sale. And then as sure as death and taxes, they’ll shuffle through this gamut of melodramatic emotions all over again.

  I’m happy

  as a pig in slop!

  I’m happier than a tornado in a trailer park!

  If I were any better

  I'd be twins!

  If I were any peachier

  I’d be cobbler.

  I'm happier than

  a woodpecker in a

  lumberyard!

  I couldn’t be happier if

  butter were fat-free!

  I’m happy as a

  clam at high tide!

  I’m happier than a mule

  in a pickle patch!

  I’m happier than a

  boll weevil hiding in

  a tub of grits!

  I’m madder than a skeeter

  in a mannequin factory!

  I'm madder than

  a mule with a mouth full

  of yellow jackets!

  That just creams

  my corn!

  That really gets my goose!

  I’m so mad my hair is on fire!

  I’m fixin’ to lose

  my religion!

  I’ll kick your

  butt from here to

  Christmas and dare

  you to walk back!

  I’ll slap you so hard

  your shirt will roll up your back

  like a window shade!

  That just burns

  my biscuits!

  I am fit to be tied!

  I'm madder

  than a wet hen!

  I’ll knock you into

  the middle of next week!

  I’m so mad I could

  chew steel and spit nails!

  I’m ’bout to give

  you nine

  kinds of hell!

  I’ll slap you to sleep then

  slap you for sleeping!

  I’ve got bees

  in my bonnet!

  That dills my pickle!

  That irritates the

  snot outta me!

  Careful, or I’ll

  cloud up and rain

  all over you!

  I’m so nervous I’m ’bout

  to jump outta my skin.

  I’m nervous as a chicken

  covered with mustard.

  I'm nervous as a virgin

  at a prison rodeo.

  I’m more nervous than a long-tailed

  cat on a porch full of rocking chairs.

  I'm as nervous as a

  hound dog trying to pass

  a peach pit.

  I’m sweating like a pig

  that knows he’s dinner.

  I’m sweating like a

  whore in church.

  You scared

  my mule!

  You scared

  the bejesus outta me!

  Lord, that would scare

  the beard off Jesus!

  Oh my stars and garters!

  Well, I’ll be a

  soch-eyed mule!

  Good gravy!

  Well,

  hell’s bells!

  I do declare!

  Well if that don’t put

  pepper in the gumbo!

  Well, I’ll be a possum

  on a gumbush!

  Well, roll me in flour

  and call me fried!

  Butte
r my

  butt and call me

  a biscuit!

  I’m sadder than a

  store-bought radish.

  I’m all torn outta frame.

  I’m tore up worse

  than a soup sandwich.

  I’m feeling low as a

  toad in a dry well.

  I'm sadder than

  canned biscuits.

  I’m tore up from

  the floor up.

  I feel like

  I've been rode hard and

  put up to dry.

  I feel like I’m sucking

  the hind tit.

  I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out.

  I’m as confused as orphan

  on Father’s Day.

  I don’t know whether to scratch

  my watch or wind my butt.

  I'm more confused

  than a cow in a parking lot!

  That’s disgusting

  enough to

  gag a maggot.

  That just makes

  my teeth itch!

  Talk Southern

  to Me 'Bout

  Stuff That

  Needs

  Interpretin'

  Stuff That Needs Interpretin'

  “That picture is all cattywampus.”

  A few years ago I went to Paris, France, and realized that—despite earning As in both high school and college French—the only things I could say in French were “I’ll have a cheese omelet, please” and, “Hello, my name is Julia. How are you?” Oh, and I can count to ten and also know tons of French ballet terminology, but that proved to be as useless as a sprig of parsley on a steak. I came to the conclusion that one cannot possibly master another language unless you were raised to speak it from birth or choose to dedicate significant time to a full immersion experience. While I was in Paris feeling vulnerable, confused, and sidelined, it dawned on me that’s exactly how non-Southerners must feel when visiting the South—lost as last year’s Easter eggs.

  Southern folks speak their own variant of the English language, and unless you’re a Southern native this can be bewildering. We speak Southern slang in a slow, honeysuckled accent, and sometimes we use bad grammar for dramatic effect. This often results in our being misjudged as ignorant or uneducated. Which really gets my goat ’cause I got smarts real good and so do oodles of other Southerners. But why would I say, “This cellulite cream does not seem to be working,” when I can say, “This cellulite cream ain’t worth a toot!” Why would I say, “I don’t care,” when I can say, “Makes no never mind to me.” Why would I say, “Is this milk expired,” when I can say, “Reckon this milk’s any count?”

  Our word usage in and of itself baffles those outside the South. A pocketbook is a purse. A toboggan is a knit hat. A cooter is a turtle. A buggy is a shopping cart. Cattywampus means askew. And a Coke refers to all varieties of soda. You addled yet? That means confused.

  My husband, who’s not from the South, bless his heart and mine, is in a constant state of bumfuzzlement. He graduated from one of New York’s most prestigious private prep schools, Trinity, and from Boston University. Yet with all his fancy pants, high falutin’ education he still can’t understand plain Southern English. He stares at me like a tree full of owls when I say, “Put these socks in the chester drawers.” He calls a chest of drawers a bureau. Say who? If I say, “Put some glass in that polar bear’s ass,” you can bet the farm I’ll freeze to death before he realizes I want him to close the window. I once said, “Lemme get back to my rat killing,” which means I gotta go, I’m busy, and he actually thought I was killing rats. Idjut! I might as well be married to a Frenchman.

  I’m fairly certain my questionable Southern grammar makes my husband’s skin crawl, especially when I say my favorite expression, “might could.” As in, “We can take the freeway if you want to but we might could get there faster on the access road.” That’s a service road for all y’all who don’t know. And speaking of “y’all,” it makes my skin crawl when I hear a non-Southerner use “y’all” for a singular person. Blasphemy! “Y’all” is a contraction for “you all.” The apostrophe goes after the “y” and “y’all” is always used to refer to more than one person. “All y’all” is used to refer to a larger group of people. “All y’all’s” is plural possessive. I’d be much obliged if all y’all’s non-Southern noggins could get that straight.

  And I’m fixin’ to tell ya that “fixin’ to” is said in the South just as often as “y’all.” It means I’m getting ready to. As in, “I’m fixin’ to grill up some gator,” or “I’m fixin’ to get ready to get ready,” or “I’m fixin’ to give him a what for and down the road!” Which means I’m fixin’ to cuss him out. In the South we don’t curse. We cuss. But when we’re minding our manners and don’t want to cuss, we say things like, “Dadgumit,” “Dadburnit,” or “Dernnation!” My Granny Fowler’s favorite words on earth were “I swannie,” which is what church-goin’ folks say instead of “I swear.”

  Southern talk—particularly backwoods, country as cornbread Southern talk—is a secret code.

  Perhaps the most puzzling thing a newcomer to the South will encounter is that what may seem like an innocuous phrase is actually a sneaky insult. In the chapter on “Chewin’ the Fat” I covered some of these phrases, including the most popular, “Bless your heart.” But there are others. For example, “Isn’t that nice,” means “Screw you.” “Interesting,” means “That’s idiotic.” And “Y’all aren’t from around here, are you?” means “Please take your rudeness back from whence you came!”

  Seein’ as how the Southern language is so difficult to navigate, I think the United States government should consider protecting itself against foreign cyber threats by writing all classified information in Southern slang. Think about it . . . even if the hooligan hackers got their hands on classified information, they would never be able to decipher it. Foreign hackers might know how to read English, but I’ll assure you nobody’s taught Southern slang to the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans—and certainly not to ISIS. Southern talk—particularly backwoods, country as cornbread Southern talk—is a secret code that even the Intelligence community is not intelligent enough to decipher unless they are native Southerners. For example:

  That fool was traipsin’ slaunchways through my ’mater stakes nekid as a jaybird.

  Zactly leben days ago whilst I wuz pilifering through my pocketbook, I spotted that skelter-eyed, scalleywag Skeeter Ledbetter, out my winder. That fool was traipsin’ slaunchways through my ’mater stakes nekid as a jaybird. I had a dyin’ duck fit cuz ole’ Skeeter is a bit tetched and pert near always hopped up on white lightning. Bein’ a grass widow, and seein’ as my naybers wuz outta town, I had to cowboy up and head on out taire by my lonesome to deal with this shindy. I hollered a fer piece, “Skeeter, urine big trouble!” but that rascal just tumped over backerds squarshin’ a mess of my ’maters.

  About to lose my religion, I chunked a rock dereckly at ’em, but I caint hit the broad side of a barn, so he carried on jes laid up daire playin’ possum. As I got right chaire at ’em I tilted my eyes to Jesus to avoid seein’ his liddey biddy talleywacker and hollered, “Skeeter, I aim to rang the Shurf if you don’t giddup on outta here!” Skeeter, who was clearly in the bag, muttered, “Kin ya dew me a favor and lemme lay here aspel? I’s plumb tard.”

  I sighed and ’ventually said, “Whale, senuous worse for the wear you can lay ahere if yonto but it’s fixin’ to come up a frog strangler and you’re lible to ketch yer death.” I moseyed on back in the house shakin’ my noggin and mutterin’, “I swannie, poor ol’ Skeeter’s got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.”

  I think our country’s enemies would be confused as all get-out if the government’s classified information were written out this way. It’s a bona fide strategy all those goobers fiddle farting around up in Congress should seriously consider. Shoot fire! I oughtta just run for Congress. I could represent
the Boondocks district! Course, there ain’t no tellin’ the toll it’ll take on me to run for office, but, hey . . . you gotta risk it to get the biscuit. Not to put on airs, but I think this here campaign slogan is pure tee genius:

  Make ’Merica Safe Again. #MericasFarnEnemiesCanKissMyGrits

  Eh, Lordy, I better skedaddle cause I’ve got umpteen things to do for this campaign.

  I’ll have to get up with y’all later. Peace, Love, and Chickens!

  Stuff Southern Folks Say that Needs Interpreting

  Aholt (hold) Grab aholt of this railing so you don’t fall down the steps.

  Aig (stir up) Please don’t aig him on or he’ll drive us all crazy.

  Aim to (intend) I aim to go to Graceland before I die.

  Ain’t worth killing (worthless) That new quarterback ain’t worth killing!

  All vines and no taters (fruitless) You can’t trust him; he’s all vines and no taters.

  Back (lick) Will you please help me back all these envelopes?

  Back talk (sass) Child, you better think twice before you back talk me!

  Bad to (inclined) My first husband was bad to drink.

  Bill fold (wallet) I’m gonna buy Daddy a new bill fold for Christmas.

  Bless out (tell off) I blessed her out for being mean to my child!

  Bone to pick (issue to discuss) Listen, I gotta bone to pick with you.