Don't Start Me Talkin'

"We talk real funny down here"
                                                   ~ Randy Newman, "Good Old Boys"

Recently, an article was brought to my attention about "Southern Sayings".

Any good Southern born and corn bread-chicken fried humorist has a stock pile of "Southern Sayings" because it can make a person rich and famous and living in Johns Creek (Jeff Foxworthy). We have our "own way of talking" as Tom Petty said.

However, this article by Christina Sterbernz and Rylan Miller in the October 31, 2013 edition of Business Insider titled 13 Southern Sayings That The Rest of America Would Not Understand is an insult, but I can't quite figure out who they are insulting.

Sterbernz and Miller begin the article: "Language discrepancies naturally arise in different geographic regions, like the raging 'pop' versus 'soda' debate".  I know I'm out of it, but I didn't know there was a debate. You refer to the name of the soft drink by its brand name. For example, if you want a Sprite, you say "I want a Sprite". Not a "pop" or a "soda". Geez, are we going to have to start putting directions on toilet paper?

One time I was at a collegiate Evangelical conference and I was walking around drinking a can of  Sprite. A guy came up to me and said, "Where'd you'd find yer pop?" I just looked at him. Then he pointed at my can of Sprite. We were both the same age raised in the same country, but obviously not the same world.

Sterbernz and Miller take the article down Yahoo creek: "But the South undoubtedly takes the cake". Then they proceed  with 13 wacky Southern sayings and they mustard up all their grey matter to explain these sayings. Number one was, get ready cause this one is wild and mysterious and almost Southern gothic, "We're living in high cotton".

Really, America? You can't understand this saying?  The country that invented "LOL" and "Old School" can not understand "Living in high cotton" without a tutorial?

It doesn't get any better. Number two was "Madder Than a Wet Hen".  Would this really stump a person from Wisconsin if  I told the story about when my mother got madder than a wet hen at me because I didn't do my homework?  Wouldn't they kind of figure it out?

Back when the world and the universe was being introduced to the phenomenon known as Bill Clinton, one of my customers, from Framingham, Massachusetts asked me, in all seriousness, "What's a Bubba?"  I told him it meant "brother". I  really didn't know. I've only known one "Bubba" in my life and I was born on the second floor of Kennestone Hospital.

My problem with the article is that it doesn't really deal with the truly odd Southern sayings. For example, my mother always said, "I swanne to Pete". What's a "swanne" and what does Pete have to do with it?

Simple. Nice women were not suppose to "swear". "Pete" is Saint Peter. Therefore, Southern women would "Swanne" instead of "swear" to "Pete" instead of Saint Peter. It makes all of the sense in the world.

Another thing my mother did was say "Scat" when somebody sneezes. It is not as spiritual as saying "Bless You", but it at least it acknowledges your sneeze. (Why do we have to acknowledge a sneezes anyway?)

At least, Sterbernz and Miller end their list with a truly odd Southern saying: "Catawampus". This is so Southern that a person raised in Marietta, Georgia and vacationed in such garden spots as Johnson City, Tennessee and Grenada, Mississippi never heard it until he started dating his wife, who was born in...Marietta, Georgia.

Something was always "catawampus","wobbyjawed" or "out of whack" at my wife's house. Her dad didn't have colds, he had "the epizootics".  It was like I had parachuted into another country where they looked like me but I didn't know the language.

Of course, an article about Southern language and ways wouldn't be complete without mentioning, as Sternzbernz and Miller did that "bless your heart" is the ultimate Southern passive-aggressive phase. "Why I declare, that Alan is such a slow fellow. Bless his heart. How'd he evah ended up with that cute lil' wife of his, I'll never know. Bless his heart".

I do agree that there are some Southern ladies that are genteel. I call them "Not my relatives". One common trait of all of my relatives is that they believe that their opinion is so correct that you need to be aware of it. The earlier the better. Otherwise, you may not be aware of this great wisdom. Like what my grandmother told my mom after she married my dad, "Well, you went through the forest and picked up a stick." My grandmother felt my mom needed her critique. It is amazing I'm not from a family of bank robbers.

Bless my heart.

Here's a link to the article.http://www.businessinsider.com/southern-sayings-2013-10