Wednesday, September 21, 2011

You can't call yourself a Southerner if you don't like Fig Preserves..It's a law.

I'm a Southerner born and bred.  We have expressions and sayings that we don't think about as odd - but to outsiders, our words can be very puzzling.  I've included a few reasons that the rest of the world can't call themselves Southerners.

You can't call yourself a Southerner if:

  • you don't have a least one rocking chair on the porch
  • you don't know at least one person called Bubba
  • you don't like grits, pinto beans, corn bread and fried catfish - not necessarily in that order
  • you've never said "bless her heart!, poor thing!, or used "cotton pickin'" as an adjective
  • you don't run to the grocery store at the first drop of a snowflake
  • you don't use ya'll at least once in every conversation
  • you've never seen a real, working outhouse
  • you haven't seen grass grow taller than your barn

  • "gettin' high" means anything other than a trip to the mountains
  • you haven't had at least one sip of "moonshine"
  • if you don't  say "love ya'" to your friends as you tell them goodbye
  • you've never said, "night, night, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite"
  • you've never been to Sunday School and have never memorized Bible verses
  • you've never heard a rooster crow
  • you've never tasted pork BBQ (cooking hamburgers on the grill is not considered BBQ in the South)
  • if you haven't taught your children to call their elders Mr. Firstname and Miss Firstname, except Miss sounds like Miz.  So does Mrs. 
  • if you don't know that supper - not dinner - is your evening meal
  • if you don't know that "I've got no dog in this fight" means you mind your own business
  • if you don't know that "over yonder" is our way of judging distance.  It can mean anywhere from within "spittin' distance" to up to several miles away.  It doesn't really matter much to us because we're going to get in our pickup truck, our 4-wheeler or our 'gator to drive there anyway.
  • you haven't tried to make images out of kudzu much like other people make images out of clouds (see photos below)

    Dinosaur - Kudzu photos compliments of this website listed here in blue.

    It's a horse!
  • you've never heard the excuse "a 'possum ate my homework"
  • if you don't know a man who still opens your car doors and pulls out your chair at the "supper table" and restaurants 
  • you don't mind being called a redneck because if you're not one, you're "kin" to someone who is
  • you don't know that Southern women are Mack trucks disguised as powder puffs
Honeychild!  I ain't just whistlin' Dixie.  If you can't claim at least ten of these as your own, you ain't from around here, are ya'? 

Now why don't you add to the list?  I know I have some Southerners who read my blog.

7 comments:

  1. I AM Uncle Bubba. I reckon I fit most of them.

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  2. I love this list - of course being a Brit I can't claim any of it, but I have to admit that once I met a Southern and contrived to make him say "ya'll" at every opportunity. Sorry "Small things amuse small minds" as my mother used to say.

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  3. Southern and raised in the way of the Kudzu!...Loved all your ways of knowing if'n yur Suthern...y'all!

    Bless your heart~

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  4. We cut the TV on.. and off. We also cut the radio up or down or on or off. We also cut the air, heat, and lights on or off. hmmmm..

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  5. Mike, I can tell you're a good ole' Southern boy. That's why I started following your blog.

    Sush - so you know Kudzu? It's a pesky little bugger, isn't it.

    And Jane - I love reading your blog because you're a Brit. We've discovered that we're culturally so different, but so much alike in other ways, haven't we?

    Krista, my sweet daughter - I did raise you Southern, didn't I. Don't foget to "cut" the lights off or you'll have a "hissie" fit when you see the "light" bill, LOL

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  6. I think I could be a Southerner after reading this! I do so many of these things and say so many of your Southern sayings too! Can I be an honorary Down Under Southerner??

    Best wishes,
    Natasha

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  7. We Southerners are very welcoming folks - we would be proud to call you Southern. You have to promise to use the "ya'll" word correctly though - it's always used in the plural sense - as in "have ya'll had dinner yet" - speaking of more than one person

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