Southern Expressions and Slang

Yankees say "terched," like "terlet."

Fixin' to... go to the store. etc.

I ain't studyin' you...I don't care. STFU.

"Bring the door with you"

"I haven't seen you in a coon's age"

My head ache is bigger than Dallas"

Oh i know a bunch of terms like that. For example that boys bread needs to be baked a bit longer. Or he/she isn't the sharpest crayon in the box. You know.

"Don't let the sun go down on you here" = we used to own your ancestors.

If God is willing, and he creek down rise.

[quote]"Bring the door with you"

What does this mean?

Bless your heart.

[quote]Yankees say "terched," like "terlet."

Yes, all of us pronounce those words that way.

Over yonder

R1- Yankees like Edith and Archie Bunker.

He's couldn't pour piss out of a boot, with the directions written on the heel!

"She's so snooty, she'd drown in a hard rain!"

What a cat-bird!

Bring the door with you =Close and lock the door when you leave.

"They sure must have some good cooks in his family" -- means "he is obese"

She doesn’t miss any meals

Sold down the river

Crack the whip

"Well, the scenery sure was pretty" = the movie sucked but was set in a scenic location

"How's ya momma an' 'em?"

Oh my!

"y'all" used to be Southern Slang, but it has been co-opted by internet scolds, gay people and Black Twitter (and the overlap amongst the three). It is now Internet Slang and usually followed by "your weekly reminder", "do better", or "need to normalize (something stupid)"

His family lives HIGH ON THE HOG

Put your hands up or I'll shoot!

Never you mind, I'll just shoot.

My favorites:

Slicker than snot on a doorknob

Windy as a sack full of farts

"Ya'll" is so convenient we had Shaker Heights teens saying it after staying there a couple weeks in the summer of 1976.

Really.

They LOVED us.

As one does.

Y'all, regardless of its use in the South, is a dead giveaway these days that you are dealing with someone insufferable.

Yes, r27!

God willin' and the creek don't rise.

Yes Mam

Dat’s da suck job!

Miss Anne, Miss Mary. etc. for familiar married ladies.

They say hisself instead of himself

"He might could do it."

I knew a well-educated southern woman who used this construction all the time. Drove me crazy!

Well everyone knows about our love of "Bless your heart"

In South Carolina, a common way to say someone was crazy was to say something like, "You need to get to Bull Street."

Bull Street in Columbia was the long time home of the state mental hospital. It isn't there anymore but I still hear this saying, especially among older people.

It’s raining like 2 cows pissing on a flat rock

Meaner than a billygoat!

I'm sweating like a whore in church!

Honey Chile

Watch yourseff, son, the squirrels is still gathering nuts for the winter.

If you ain’t got biscuits cornbread’ll do.

Busier’n a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Busier’n a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

I’m so busy I don’t know if I found a rope or lost my horse.

Well butter my buns and call me a biscuit!

I wouldn't piss on him if his heart was on fire.

He’s crookeder than a hound’s hind leg.

Y’all is everywhere, ubiquitous

Cleaner’n hound’s tooth.

Batter my wiener and call me a corn dog

Slick as a minner. (Minnow)

[quote] "Ya'll" is so convenient we had Shaker Heights teens saying it

Shouldn’t that be "’Ya'll’is so convenient we’all had Shaker Heights teens saying it”?

She looks like Look like something the cat dragged in

“Who all”.

Haha. “Who all”.

I'm Colombian but have lived over in Memphis, TN for some time. I like the southern slang as long as it is tolerant minded.

"That man there touched." Means, the fellow is crazy in some fashion, OP already knows. In Memphis it was oftentimes used to describe Donald Trump for obvious reasons.

"Don't let the door hit you lest the good Lord split you." Means, get the hell out of my life and/or house.

"The sidewalk shake the second that thot walk near a church." Means, an absolute lady of ill repute. THOT means "that ho over there." Oh my goodness! Memphis has a ton of churches.

"Thick." Means, instead of shapely or perhaps just downright fat one says "thick." I find it polite, and as a Lesbian, the gentlemen who describe ladies that way mean no harm and are oftentimes really accurate.

I love it! As long as the southern slang is tolerant minded I'm cool with it.

Hush yo mouff

Tell the truth and shame the devil

Boy.

"right smart" of something = "a great deal" of something

[quote] "Don't let the door hit you lest the good Lord split you."

It’s actually "Don't let the door hit you [bold]where[/bold] the good Lord split you." (your butt).

Is a frog's ass watertight?

Bill Clinton said, "I'll be with you 'til the last dog dies!"

I never did figure out what that meant.

Tighter than a well digger’s ass

Walking in tall cotton = rich

Dumb as a sack of hair, dumb as bag full of hammers

[quote] Tighter than a well digger’s ass

That would be “colder than a well digger’s ass,” Hoss.

My dad:

"She's uglier'n a mud fence." "Played awful today. Couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle." "Whoooo doggies, that's good."

Colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra

Courtesy of my late grandmother:

“Could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence”

“As full of shit as a Christmas turkey”

It's a toad strangler= neaning, its raining really hard

I used ta could.

[quote] “Could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence.”

I'm from the South, and the variation of that one I often heard was, "Teeth so big he/she could bite an apple through a picket fence."

[quote]My dad: Whoooo doggies...

Was his last name Clampett?

"Sweating like a fat man at a free dance."

Most of these are from my mother’s mother:

Like shifting shit with knitting needles = doing something the wrong/hardest way

Ten pounds of sugar in a five pound bag = someone, usually a woman, wearing too tight/revealing clothes

Buggy = grocery cart

Tight as Dick’s hatband = a cheap person but referring to the foreskin

From can to can’t = sunup to sundown

Hot as hinges = refers to how hot the hinges to the gates of hell would be

Piss-elegant = style in decoration to fancy for the setting / putting on airs

Count your fingers after shaking their hand = someone is crooked or a thief

Doesn’t have sense enough to get in out of the rain = stupid

Knee-walking drunk = too drunk to stand up

Drunk as Cooter Brown = supposedly about a guy who stayed drunk all during the civil war so he couldn’t be drafted

Rich as Cresus = refers to the ancient Lydian king who invented coinage

Take to bed = someone has had a mental breakdown

I’ll post more as they come to me. She was a character!

So Fat she sat on a rainbow and made skittles

“I wish a fairy would transport you to my side” and then “we could have a conversation of the right stamp” and “I never knew such a lark”

Eyes so crossed she could see the chickens in the backyard while settin’ in front.

[quote] I find it polite, and as a Lesbian, the gentlemen who describe ladies that way mean no harm and are oftentimes really accurate. I love it! As long as the southern slang is tolerant minded I'm cool with it.

Boundaries stated.

[quote] "Sweating like a fat man at a free dance."

Why does the dance being free make the fat man sweat more?

The one I often heard was, "I'm sweating like a Coke bottle at a barbecue."

If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass.

Using "mash" instead of "push". "Just mash the clutch while you're shifting and you'll do fine". "If you had another brain, it'd be lonesome". "Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the possum it could be done". "The hamster's dead but the wheel's still spinnin' ".

“Drink” to mean any beverage

^^Huh?

[quote] “Drink” to mean any beverage

I haven’t heard that it have heard “Coke” to mean any type of soft drink. The person ordering says “I want a Coke”, and the server will ask “What kind?”

[quote] “Drink” to mean any beverage

I haven’t heard that. I have heard “Coke” to mean any type of soft drink. The person ordering says “I want a Coke”, and the server will ask “What kind?”

R80 is from Eastern NC.

They are all "drinks."

Unless they're DRANKS.

I first heard If The Good Lord Is Willing And The Creeks Don’t Rise from Hank Williams.

R82 That's one I've heard about but never experienced. We just say whatever brand or flavor we want around my area. If you say coke, you want a coke. If you want pepsi, you say pepsi, if you want sprite you say sprite.

Great balls of fire?

(Actually, does anybody still say that?)

[quote]"Don't let the door hit you lest the good Lord split you." Means, get the hell out of my life and/or house.

No, it's "Don't let the door hit you WHERE the good Lord split you" referring to your butt crack and thus, leave and don't let the door slam your ass on the way out.

"Co'Cola"

"Fine as frog hair split three ways"

"Uglier than homemade sin"

"Gooder'n snuff and not half as dusty"

"More holey than righteous" (said of tatty clothes, socks, etc.)

Up shit creek without a paddle.

Plainer than a mud fence

Now some of you are not reading the prior posts.

"It's hotter than blue blazes!" meaning, it's hotter than hell - because brimstone (sulfur) burns with a blue flame.

R33, “Miss Ann” has a different meaning to me. I have always understood that to refer to prissy White women, or prissy gay White men…by Black folks.

Saditty= stuck up Color struck= overly focused on skin tone dick struck=obsessed with sex, dick size

R89, did you completely skim by r57?

[quote] I’m so busy I don’t know if I found a rope or lost my horse.

Boy, do I know this feeling

[quote]I first heard If The Good Lord Is Willing And The Creeks Don’t Rise from Hank Williams.

Wow! You must be older’n dirt in dog years! That feller’s birth certificate done got canceled almost 70 years ago!

On yesterday/on tomorrow

right close

Perti’neer.

People in hell want ice water. Retort when a kid asks for something. If you had a brain you would be dangerous Did you get in the wrong line when they were passing out brains ? Wish in one hand and shit in the other

"Pure-dee," an intensifier: "That there gal is pure-dee TRASH"

MAGA

"fixin to" instead of "getting ready to"

We're fixin' to leave for church.

r106 You should be fixin' to read the thread before posting.

See R2.

I think they say y'all a lot.

R84, I’m from central NC. “Drink” is said throughout NC to mean any beverage.

High yella (black Person with light complexion)

I’m from MD and I think we use “drink” this way as well? What is it supposed to mean, alcoholic beverages only?

R107, you cuter than a June bug.

She's lost as last year's Easter egg.

Rocky Mount is not central NC.

Virginia also says drink to me all beverages

I will say I've heard it in a general sense. "Y'all wanta drink?" But, not for specific drinks, you still answer with tea, coke, etc... or say "whatcha you got."

A tad bit

Well I never in all my life.

She put her foot in this food!

Ugly people got “hit with the ugly stick”

“I swan” for “I swear” (because it’s not right to swear)

“Night shoes” meaning slippers

The wrecker for ambulance

R120 Wrecker is a tow-truck not an ambulance which is usually pronounced ambeaulance and the noise is the sighreine.

She’s just shallow as a saucer.

Prez-dit, for President

Pin, for pen

Put that to, meaning please close a door, drawer or cabinet

Madder than a wet hen

Kinfolk for relatives.

Cousins for wives.

"Nervous as a pregnant nun." [italic]See also[/italic] "Jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo."

R126 Along those lines I heard an old guy say, "I'm as nervous as the only heifer in a field full of bulls."

Chimbley for chimney.

Some people's children!

Until the cows come home

In some very rural parts of the south they don't say "touched", they say "he's titched in the hade"

"momanim" is for "mom and them"

"I'm serious as a tornado in a trailer park"

"His breath would blister a brick" or "his breath would make an onion cry".

In northern parts of Alabama they say "youinses" when asking someone if they're going to do something. "Are youinses going to the dance"?

"Well I swan" means "well I'll be".

In Alabama I stopped for gas off the expressway once. In the convenience store a woman was looking at sodas in the refrigerated section. She kept asking the clerk "how much is this orange cocola? "how much is this grape cocola?", etc. Every damn soda in the case was a "cocola" to her.

Oh my lands!

she's sweat'n like a whore in church

It's spelled "y'all," short for "you all." "Ya'll" makes no sense as a spelling.

[quote]Watch yourseff, son, the squirrels is still gathering nuts for the winter.

[quote] If you ain’t got biscuits cornbread’ll do.

Well, these are mysterious. What do they mean?

Do you also say "Shaka, when the walls fell "?

[quote] [R33], “Miss Ann” has a different meaning to me. I have always understood that to refer to prissy White women, or prissy gay White men…by Black folks.

It's actually used by black folks for stuck-up black women.

From the opening of DREAMGIRLS, when the black manager Marty is objecting to two other black characters, Joanne and Charlene, walking out on being back-up singers for his client James Thunder Early:

MARTY: "You walk, Miss Ann, and I'll call your union!"

JOANNE: "What union, Marty? You don't hire union."

CHARLENE: "Come on, Joanne, our limousine is waiting..."

“Toboggan” for a knit cap. I have no idea why people outside of Western N.C. have no idea what that is.

Chiffarobe

No R137. “You bettah ask somebody.”

Nervous as a nun in a cucumber patch.

That’s busier’n a nun in a cucumber patch.

R136,

Squirrels gathering nuts: Someone is a little off-kilter, they’d be warned the squirrels are gathering nuts.

As for the biscuits/cornbread, it said when something is used in lieu of another thing.

“Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

“I got a pencil.”

“Well, if ya ain’t got biscuits cornbread’ll do.”

^^^ It's barree, not borrow.

“I appreciate you” as a way of thanking a client for his custom.

Blessed for everything good

Sho 'nuff

“Shut your whore mouth!” said to a garrulous strumpet.

Tee tee for pee.

Well, that'll go over like a fart in a whirlwind.