re: Southern Slang (with definitions)

all soft drinks are referred to as Coke.

“Not enough to where you could tell it.”- an answer given to someone who asks you if you want to participate in an endeavor you don’t particularly want to take part of.




Q-“ Do you want to help me move to my new house?”

A- “Not enough to where you could tell it.”

Frigerator. Ice box where beer, milk, and eggs are kept.
Warsh. -the car, my clothes, the dog…
Finer ‘n frogs’ hair! Correct response to “Howya’lldoin?

"rode hard and put up wet"

"picture show"

Rat cheer - right here

at ‘ight air -that right there

Things I've heard my parents say:

"All over but the shoutin" (my dad used to say this)

"That ain't no count" - This means "of no account." (My dad said this often).

"LAW" -- said when exasperated. "Oh law, John is on the meth again." (My mom says this).

"Fit to be tied" - my mom says this

"I suwanne" -- My mom says this. Always made me laugh.

"Haint" - referring to an ugly monster or ghost or something.

"How's John and 'em" -- referring to John and his family (Heard this many times in the south)

"Plumb" as in "That boy is plumb stupid."

Antebellum south:

I read a book by a man from England who visited the South in the 1840's. He did a whole ethnography study and mentioned quite a few words and phrases he learned. A few I remember:

"Spell" --- He said if the weather was really hot, southerners would say "My, what a hot spell we have."

"Plunder" -- People in the Antebellum south called luggage plunder. A hotel clerk asked him for his "plunder" and he had to ask what that meant.

"Tote" -- "Tote that bag upstairs." (Still in use today)

"Situation" -- In the Antebellum south, a "situation" was the name given to a job or employment. "I hate my boss, I need to find a new situation."

"Do your prettiest" -- Meant do your best, etc.

"Balance" - meant the remainder of. "I will jog in the morning and the balance of my day will be spent at work." This guy said he heard people in the south say "balance" a million times.

"Mighty" - He said mighty was often used as an adjective. "That's a mighty fine horse." Or even in other cases like "I want to go to the ball mighty bad."

"Cock" - Meant a dick or penis. In England he had never heard the term "cock" to mean a penis and he had to have a man explain to him why everyone laughed when he said it.

"Air" sounds switched to "are" sound. This guy said one peculiar thing people in the Antebellum South did was mess with the vowel sounds in words like "there." He said they pronounced "there" as "thar" or "stairs" as "stars" etc. And this wasn't some hillbilly stuff, wealthy plantation owners in Atlanta and Charleston said it too.

Pert neer = almost perfect ; within tolerance ; very close.

“Good enough for governement work” means shoddy work but it’ll do

Also “n word rigged” was a more common way to say it back in the day

quote:

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That dude is as full of shite as a 9 pound robin.

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...or a Christmas goose.