Things us Southerners like to do...

[Bill Mc]

ANNOY YANKEES



* Take your own sweet time when doing ANYTHING.

* Pronounce all one syllable words with two.

* When giving directions, finish with "it's right down yonder on the left."

* Talk REAL slow, and ask them to speak more slowly so you can understand what they're saying.

* When they talk nostalgically about the North, tell 'em "Delta's ready when you are!"

* Talk loudly and often about SEC football or ACC basketball.

* Refer to every soft drink as a Coke.

* Always order sweet tea and/or grits. When they don't have it, raise a ruckus.

* Offer to send 'em a bottle of fresh air.

* Insist on being addressed by your first AND middle names. (e.g. Lisa Marie -- John Michael -- Jim Bob. . .)

* Frequently bring up "The War of Northern Aggression" in conversation. If anyone ever says the words "Civil War", always interject that "there was nothing civil about it."

* Address all males as "son" and females as "little lady".

* Correct their pronunciation of certain words. For example: It's "pee-can."

* Put Tabasco on everything.

* For New York Yankees: Act as if the whole state of New York is New York City. In other words, if they say "Yo, I'm from upstate New Yoik!" say , "Well I'll be, my wife has always wanted to see a Broadway show!"

* When invited to dinner, offer to bring dessert. Show up with a box of Moon Pies. . . banana ones.

* Name all of your children "Bubba."

* Use the word "reckon" in a sentence.

* "Mash" buttons. "Cut" off lights. "Carry" the kids to school. "Fetch" something.

* Never simply "do" something. Be "fixin to do" something.

* Tell them you don't have an accent, they do.

* Be sure to include "yes/no ma'am/sir" in all conversations..

* Only use landmarks and ramble on when giving directions. "Now go down Jeff Davis Highway and turn left at where the Chevron station used to be. I think they turned it into a Amoco. Or maybe a BP. Anyway, turn right there. . ." "You said left." "Did I? Well, turn left there and follow it until you see a big fish on your left. I remember when that fish used to be on the other side of town.."

* Ask them if it's still snowing up North. Then tell 'em you went driving around in your convertible this weekend.

* Call 'em a yankee. Works every time.

[LampLighter]

Those attributes describe the old school generation around here. Alot of those have died out. Some of the current phrases I hear are :

reckon, fixin, momma, that ol' ,

and the most often question that they ask, and they ask it immediately is:

WHERE YOU FROM ? everything hinges on this for some reason. I think they are fishing for the suburb folks. When they spot one they refer to him as " Slick)

Also, that "local territory" seems to be real strong to this day. N . LA don't care much for S. LA, specially them boys come up here killing all our deer.:D

But come summer, they all flock to the coast to catch Red Drum. ( yuck:()

Also geographical is the choice of truck. N. LA hates Ford. Every Tom, Dic, and Harry in N. LA has a Chevy Z71.

Nobody in N. LA bar-b-ques. They Grille. and lord, they are not eating no chicken. This is no lie. When we were in duck identification school on the coast, on the LA/Tx line, the cafeteria was serving chicken for dinner. One of them N. LA boys said he ain't eating no chicken. He packed up and went home.

[TXAnn38]

Another "Southernism" that seems to bother those Yankee folks is to interject "y'all" and "you'uns" into your sentences.

You'uns gonna go to town with us? They'uns already left a while ago.

Or even: Them there'uns gonna get in trouble if they keep on doin' that.

Ending declarative sentences with a rising inflection is effective also. Makes every thing you say sound like a question. Heckfire, it even drives me nuts sometimes?

:p

Ann

[LampLighter]

One thing I just cannot fathom is what my in laws do. They live in cotton growing country. They know if anybody in a 10 mile radius has a headache, a joint pain, is cheating on his/her spouse, who's kid got in trouble, etc.. The phone rings. Mother -in-law goes into that "huddled position" and moseys off whispering. She comes back after the call. We are eating. She tells F.I.L. " claude said his Aunt Boo wasn't feeling good this morning."

YOU GOT to be Kidding !! WTF??!!!

[TXAnn38]

Jungle telegraph, Lamplighter. When you and all your kinfolk have lived in a place for several generations, nothing is a secret. Everyone knows everything about everyone else, back to when they moved here in the 1700s. Real common, especially down here in the South. Residence to become "one of the folks" can be anywhere from 50 to 200 years, depending on whether "you folks is friendly or mighty standoffish"!

Sometimes it's really nice, if there's trouble, sickness, death, any other kind of worry. Sometimes it's really annoying--if you're running around on your wife, or your kid is picked up for DUI or shoplifting at the mall. Can't do anything about it; just accept and go on. :p

Ann

[Greywolf]

Yeah, it's true.

but, though I was not born in this particular town, but a little spot on the willy-wags.
I once listened to a story all about myself, told to me by a perfect stranger:D
So I listened intently and with enthusiasm. Why embarrass the poor guy? he might eventually recognise his mistake, (and me, the subject of his story:D).
It's just the way things are, and I know there is no harm intended.
But it is amusing at times.

[LampLighter]

it gets better. Father-in-law is head of maint. at the two area nursing homes:rolleyes::rolleyes: There ain't nuttin they don't know.

[TXAnn38]

:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Twanger]

Another "Southernism" that seems to bother those Yankee folks is to interject "y'all" and "you'uns" into your sentences.

You'uns gonna go to town with us? They'uns already left a while ago.

Or even: Them there'uns gonna get in trouble if they keep on doin' that.

Ending declarative sentences with a rising inflection is effective also. Makes every thing you say sound like a question. Heckfire, it even drives me nuts sometimes?

:p

Ann


TXAnn - I thought you'uns was an Eastern Tennessee mountain word. I was brought up with it - summers at Granny's. Is it also used in Texas?

[TXAnn38]

Hi Twanger, good to see ya!

Here in SE TX, we tend to say "y'all". But don't forget, I lived about 10 or 12 years in the Piedmont section of North Carolina, about half-way between Winston-Salem and Asheville, right off of I-40. I had heard "you-uns" before, but when they started coming out with "we-uns" and "they-uns", I had a hard time keeping a straight face.

And, my neighbors never said Good-bye when they left; they always said, "Just come go with us!" To which, I learned the correct reply was, "Can't. Better stay right here."

With mass media making the difference in regional speech less and less these days, back in 1965 when I moved there, the difference between the way we talked in Texas and the way we talked in NC was quite wide. They thought I talked funny and I was quite intrigued by the local dialect. All of that is fading away now; as I said, mass media is destroying some of the flavor in our speech.

Ann

[Twanger]

That explains it. Yep... Asheville is only a hop and a skip from the East Tennessee mountains.

How about "Ya'll come back again!" as a parting phrase?
I've only heard this in that little corner of the world.

It's kinda a weird combination of "come again" and "ya'll come back."

[Bill Mc]

Most folks down they say,

"Y'all come on back, you hear"

[TXAnn38]

LOL, well, I'm guilty of saying, "Y'all come back, now". It's fairly common down here in Texas. In fact, a man named Arlie Duff, who used to teach school in Vidor, close to Beaumont, wrote a song about it--covered by several artists but I remember hearing him sing it. He wrote another song that was on the national charts--Bing Crosby sang it in a movie, but I don't remember which one--called Feudin', A' Fussin', and A'Fightin'.

Found Arlie on the Opry singing Y'all Come:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4g9_F24NY

Twanger, Jack and I used to ride up to Bristol, went thru Morganton and Jonas Ridge on the Carolina side and Roan Mountain, Franklin and Elizabethton on the Tennessee side. That was the closest way to get from Burke County to Virginia to buy lottery tickets. It was a pretty ride, especially in the fall when the leaves were turning.

Ann

[TXAnn38]

Actually, that YouTube vid might have been from the Ozark Jubilee. My bad.

Ann

[Jo Ann]

I was born in Oklahoma and raised in Southern Missouri, and in Mo, they use you'ns. My kids are Kansans, and when they hear their cousins say that, they really get a kick out of it. I don't pay any attention to it, guess if you grow up with it, you don't notice.

[Bill Mc]

Another thing, but this must be common to all folks who have lived in a certain area for a long time.

"Well, you take this road up where the old Joe's house used to be and then turn left.":D

[ncboman]

From here I can drive 40 miles east and get into the Coastal Brogue, english spoken more properly than the Brits' best. ... 'hoigh toide at noine oclock', et al.

And drive 40miles west and be in dat country. 'Dat bacca needs primin.'

:D

ncboman

[TXAnn38]

ncbowman, Jack's dad's folks all lived in Burke County. The first time we moved up there, we lived close to Granite Falls, in Caldwell County and I could see Grandfather Mountain from my back porch. It was the first time I had ever lived anywhere except the Texas Gulf Coast, and I loved it, even learning to drive in the snow that winter was an adventure. And it DID snow that winter, every Wednesday and every Saturday from the middle of January thru the middle of March. Our old '58 Chevy automatically headed for the local service station to get the chains put on the tires every time the sky got that "clabbered over" look. :p

Learning to speak the language was sure something, though and it was like learning a new language. I came from a mix of Texas and Cajun to the mountain speech of Jack's people--and we all got some laughs from that. Back then, what folks up north called a soda and down in Texas we called a coke, everyone around where we lived, called a "dope". "If you're goin' to the store, bring me back a dope." That one got my attention!

Colloquial speech has always fascinated me anyway. The lilt of the mountain phrases, almost still Elizabethan, was unfamiliar to my ears, and I still love to hear it. The way of life up on the Blue Ridge has become modernized, and the manner of speaking is fading away too, given the fact that cable and satellite have brought television. Just like the Cajun patios, the mountain speech has changed over the years, as have the mountain tops. The last time we were up there, more and more of the mountains had been shorn of trees and had houses with wide yards looking down at us. It's a pity!

Ann

[Waidmann]

Ann,

Anyone can say "y'all". But when you're talking about the second person plural possessive, do you actually "all y'all's" as it's one word? That one's complements of a friend of mine named "Bay-eth", although it's spelled "Beth". She's also the one who introduced me to the distance known as "a right good piece". I gather that means you can walk there if you had to, but if someone offered you a ride, you'd probably take it.

Waidmann

[Greywolf]

Anyone can say "y'all". But when you're talking about the second person plural possessive, do you actually "all y'all's" as it's one word?

i thourt tha'n wuz you'uns. or is you'un just the contraction of all y'all?:confused:

[TXAnn38]

Ann,

Anyone can say "y'all". But when you're talking about the second person plural possessive, do you actually "all y'all's" as it's one word? That one's complements of a friend of mine named "Bay-eth", although it's spelled "Beth". She's also the one who introduced me to the distance known as "a right good piece". I gather that means you can walk there if you had to, but if someone offered you a ride, you'd probably take it.

Waidmann

LOL, I'm more likely to say "y'all all". "Y'all all goin' to town now? Bring me back somethin'." Possessive case, tho, I'd probably say "y'all's" "These dogs y'all's?" Actually, I'd be more apt to ask, "These dogs belong to you?"


Quote:
Anyone can say "y'all". But when you're talking about the second person plural possessive, do you actually "all y'all's" as it's one word?

i thourt tha'n wuz you'uns. or is you'un just the contraction of all y'all?

GW, I don't really know the etymologies of "y'all" and "you'uns". Sort of like asking about the chicken and the egg, isn't it (and now we do know which came first there *grin*). However the latter mentioned does have singular and plural--"you'un" and "you'uns".

Ann

[Greywolf]

OK thats clear's as a jar of shine.


BTW
I've heared that the chicken and the egg have decided to give it one more try:o:D

[TXAnn38]

;) Didn't know I was that good at obsfucation, did ya now, GW? :D:D:D

[Bill Mc]

do you actually "all y'all's"

Nope, it's "yen'ses" :)