I mentioned a few days ago that growing up in the “south,” I used some phrases or expressions that seemed foreign to a lot of people after I left home and went out into other parts of the world. I remember when I first came to the Washington area, people used to ask where I was from — I’m sure I had an Oklahoma accent or “twang,” but I used terms that were strange to people living around Washington. For instance, I referred to a container you put things in as a “sack” — not a “bag.” When I was growing up, working in grocery stores, I was a “sack boy” — we didn’t have “bag boys.”
Here’s some things I remember my parents and grandparents (and other people) saying when I was growing up.
Over yonder; Fixin’to; Cotton picking’; eating high on the hog; sharp as a butter knife; cooking with gas; too pooped to pop; naked as a jay bird; skinny as a rail; raised on beans and taters; green as a gourd; scarce as hens teeth; its/he’s no count; madder than a wet hen; til the cows come home; the pot calling the kettle black; blown’ up a storm; fly off the handle; hissy fit; well, I declare; hold your horses; too big for his britches; barking up the wrong tree;
I remember that my grandad used to say “they were cut out right — just sewed up wrong” when he was talking about a strange or peculiar person. I’ve heard “this ain’t my first rodeo,” but in Oklahoma, the saying was “this ain’t my first goat ropin.” If someone had had plenty to eat, they’d say they were “full as a tick,” and if something fell into the too little, too late category, you’d hear “it don’t do no good to close the gate after the horse is out.” When I was a kid, every summer we got to get a new pair of tennis shoes — had nothing to do with the game of tennis — I never heard the term “sneakers.” Even though I’ve heard the terms occasionally lately, we always called a bottle opener a church key. When I was little, most grocery stores didn’t have shopping carts — some of the larger ones had baskets, but usually, you just piled your purchases on the counter as you shopped…. but there were a few that did have carts and my grandmother always referred to them as a buggy — not a shopping cart.
And I remember hearing “nervous as a long-tail cat in a room fulla rocking chairs.” One of my grandmothers used “bless your heart” a lot and most people around Maysville didn’t say I think or I believe — they said “I reckon.” “If the creek don’t rise” was almost always used to describe something out of your control. I remember one of my dad’s favorite expressions when something wasn’t valuable or important —he’d say, “it don’t amount to a hill of beans.” If something was broken or not right, it was “cattywampus.” If you couldn’t remember the name of something, it was referred to as a “doohickey.” One thing that always annoyed me was when some old lady wanted to give you a kiss, they’d say “gimme some sugar.” And seems like all the old ladies always told every kid they saw, “aren’t you precious.” Carry was a popular word for “take” — people would ask someone to carry them to the store, not take them. If someone was showing off, my mom would say they were “highfalutin.” My dad would always say “sure nuff?” A lot of people said, “sho nuff?”
A southern accent is a lot like blonds — people tend to categorized blonds a “dumb,” and if you talk with a Southern accent, it’s perceived you are slow. Of course, that’s really not true — I’ve met just as many dumb people that talk without an accent as with….
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