Southern Expressions
Posted in Mixed Bag and tagged with Lists, North Carolina, The South, Words on January 22, 2008I’ve now lived in North Carolina for 2 1/2 years. I really do enjoy it here, but a few things drive me batty at times. Primarily, the language differences. I can certainly get used to a Southern accent and forget it after awhile, but there are a few words that Southerners (at least the ones I know) say, and they drive me crazy.
As a disclaimer, this post is intended to be funny. While I wish everyone would pronounce everything the right way (insert “my way”), I want to celebrate the differences. Just don’t expect me to use any of these any time soon.
Here are just a few:
1. Favor. As in, “Look at his nose, doesn’t he favor his Uncle Jim Bob?” Just in case you can’t pick up the meaning of “favor” from context as I surely didn’t the first several times I heard it, “favor” means “bear a likeness to.”
2. Mash. Not as in potatoes, but as in buttons. Instead of pressing buttons, Southerners are big on mashing them. I guess they are subtly indicating their strength to pulverize the buttons if they so choose.
3. Got that honestly. If you have gotten something honestly, it means that you properly inherited the genes for it from your parents. Honestly.
4. Get on the stick. I can’t stand this phrase, and cringe every time I hear it. It just sounds so wrong. To say you are getting on the stick about something means that you are getting right to the task.
5. Tote. Instead of carry. I guess that’s why they call it a tote bag, but I never really thought about tote being a verb before.
6. Crank the car. Instead of start the car. I can’t complain about this one, since April has so wonderfully cranked my car twice last week when it was cold.
7. Err/error/era. This is just confusing to me. “Err” is pronounced “urr,” “error” is pronounced “erra,” and “era” is sometimes pronounced “erar.” Thus, “error” and “era” are pronounced oppositely of the way they are spelled which causes many a Northerner to scratch his head when he hears, “In the Mesozoic error…” and “Don’t make that era again.”
8. War of Northern Aggression. I about fell out of my seat the first time I heard this. I just couldn’t believe it. Last I checked, the Confederacy DOES NOT EXIST. You lost the war, and it was determined that a state in fact does not have the right to enter or leave the union at will whenever they choose. Oh, and the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter, not the other way around.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Oh man! I heard so many of those living in East Texas. Mash the buttons sticks in my mind even now.
Fun stuff.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Oh, I miss the South! I remember hearing some of those when I first moved to NC. I think the one that got me was Food Lion was pronounced Food Line :) Can’t wait to share with you more vocab I’ve learned while being over here! Coming soon I hope…