I just remembered another nickname my mom had for one of our babysitters growing up. It was Roachafacea. Real name Kimberly, she unfortunately got her new name while camping out in line for some Rick Springfield tickets. At some point a cockroach made itself at home on her face.

In a related story, my mom saw Rick Springfield's stanky, dirty running shorts hanging out to dry near his RV. Naturally it occurred to her to swipe the shorts. She had them framed and gave it to Rochafacea. The story has a sad ending because the shorts were lost when Rochafacea's house caught on fire. No one was hurt in the fire. Just lost an important piece of history.

Pecan

I just saw a commercial for I can't even remember what. The voiceover guy says at the end, "With pehkans. Or is it peh-kons?" It's neither. It's pee-can. Equal stress on both syllables. First part rhymes with he. Second rhymes with man. Pecan. Heman.

Hick-A-Nuts

When I was growing up, my parents had the craziest friends. They called themselves the Hick-A-Nuts and would have t-shirts made for any occasion: golf tournaments, ski trips, summer parties. The goal was to be as tacky as possible. Pink flamingo yard decorations, beer fountains, crude behaviour, sending the kids away for two weeks so they won't witness the parties.

For some reason, no one seems to ever ask where the name hick-a-nut came from. I asked my parents and apparently it's what people from southern Alabama call southern Georgia rednecks. Being from southern Georgia must really be backwoods for southern Alabama to have a term for it.

Bless Your Heart

In the south, whenever someone says to you 'Bless your heart!', it translates into 'You're so stupid."

For example, Beverly broke the copy machine. So her coworkers say, "Bless her heart, she broke the machine."
Translation: Beverly's so stupid, she broke the machine.

Idioms

Today in class, my Austrian teacher was telling us that their version of 'that's where the rubber hits the road' is 'that's when the monkey jumps in the water.' Haha, I cannot understand at all what the origin of that phrase would be. She didn't either. It seems a little random.

Pet-peeves

Two of my biggest pet-peeves just popped into my head. I HATE how much people say 'ya know.' It is driving me insane. I think it's only getting worse. The younger generations seem to be replacing 'like' with 'ya know.' I can't even hear what someone is saying to me in between the ya knows. I don't know. If I knew, you would have no reason to be telling me. It's way worse than 'like' for me.

The other is over-enunciators. Haha. Don't over-enunciate. It makes you seem really uptight. And it takes so much effort. If you say "in-ter-rest-ing" with equal stress on each syllable, you are an over-enunciator. It's kind of like how you talk when trying to communicate with someone that's hard of hearing.

Jesus Bug

I was talking to my friend about I have no idea what, but I asked her what she called the bug that skims across the water. In the south we call it a jesus bug. She said she called it a waterskipper, which is logical enough. It's just that in the south, naming things based on religion makes more sense.

Same with a thunderstorm that happens when the sun is shining. We say the devil is beatin his wife. That's a regional thing, though. People in other areas have equally hilarious names for this.

Yonder

This isn't anything revelatory. It's a piece of southern culture that I think is disappearing more with each successive generation.

No one my age, that I have ever heard, ever says 'yonder' anymore. If we do, it's strictly as a joke. I don't hear many people in my parents' generation say it either. My Nana says it ALL the time. She changes all words that end in 'ow' to a 'er' sound.

For example, one time I asked her to say "Get that yellow pillow in there under the window from that fellow." She translated it as, "Get that yeller piller in yonder under the winder from that feller." Actually, it's not all words that end in 'ow.' She wouldn't change borrow to borrer, perhaps because it's too awkward. If the word has an 'r' before the 'ow', it would remain in its original form. Tomorrow is still tomorrow. Sorrow still sorrow.

Haha, I love my Nana.

Ryan, Aggravatin Casey

This is something my mom and her friends started saying when I was 2 or 3. If I complained to my mom about my brother, Ryan, she would say to Ryan, "Ryan, aggravatin Casey!" While this is undoubtedly unfunny to others, in my family and my friends this is a riot. Even thinking about it I crack up.

It comes from one of my Mom's friends, who also had a son and daughter. One time their family was on a road trip. The two kids, Shane and Shelly, were sitting in the backseat. Shane kept bothering Shelly, so Shelly told her mom to make Shane quit bothering her. Her mom, in a rush, yelled back at Shane, "Shane! Agrravatin Shelly!" Of course she meant to say, "Shane! Quit aggravatin Shelly!"
Stupid things like this happen and there is a phrase that is ingrained into our minds forever. My mom and her friends were relentless with these things.

I'll talk about the Hick-a-Nuts soon.

Irregular verbs

I wound up on a guy's blog who asked if anyone ever made up words. He used the example of 'squoze'. As in "You squoze the whole tube out."
I think we do that a lot down here and I didn't even realize it.

We say crope instead of crept. As in, "I was hiding and he just crope right up on me." Crope might be more widespread. It really doesn't sound unnatural to me at all.

Others: drug instead of dragged (I drug him to the pool), dove instead of dived (Then I dove in the pool), swum instead of swam(I swum for an hour), drunk instead of drank(I drunk some of the water), clomb instead of climbed(Then I clomb out the pool.)

I can't think of others right now. They're a little hard for me to recognize. I actually had to look some of these up in the dictionary because I couldn't think of what their correct past tenses were.

English Rules

Not southern, but I've always liked them:


1. Don't use no double negatives.
2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.
3. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
4. About them sentence fragments.
5. When dangling, watch your participles.
6. Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
7. Just between you and i, case is important.
8. Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read.
9. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
10. Try to not ever split infinitives.
11. It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly.
12. Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
13. Correct speling is essential.
14. A preposition is something you never end a sentence with.

Miss Jones

My Nana and her family always say "gotta go see Miss Jones" when they need to use the restroom. I can't find anything about this phrase and my Nana doesn't know where it comes from.

By the way, Nana is pronounced 'neh-neh' as opposed to 'nanna.' Her male counterpart is Papa, pronounced 'paw-paw.'