i remember growing up my parents always used to say “don’t worry about the mule being blind. just sit on the wagon and hold the line”
and also i don’t know if this is a southern thing but when i was a kid and asked where we were going they’d always say “to see a man about a dog” what’s yalls favorite sayings?
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My mom would say, recalling from her youth, “It’s hotter than a two-dollar pistol.” I don’t know if it’s specifically Southern, but I think of it as such because she was.
“Free Bird!”
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve spent my life in kitchens, mostly southern kitchens, but I’ve only ever heard “Going to see a man about a dog/horse” to mean the person saying it is on their way to the restroom in the same context as “dropping the kids off at the pool” or “taking the browns to the Super Bowl”.
As for favorite southern phrase, the first time I heard someone was “as dumb as a bag of hammers/box of rocks” I thought it was pretty funny. But my favorite southern phrase is very localized and is really a New Orleans or Delta Region/Cajun Country phrase: Laissez les bon temps rouler, let the good times roll. It’s my favorite because it reminds me of my time living in Louisiana, the wonderful Cajun people that embraced a yankee family that moved to Des Allemands, the people in the little church my father pastored that loved him for moving his family 1700 miles sight unseen to be their pastor. And the lovely Cajun lady saw this 18 year old (at the time) yankee boy who didn’t know what he was going to do with his life and taught him traditional Cajun cooking in her home kitchen. I have taken what she taught me with me throughout my career over the last 30 years and always tell people that I grew up in New England but Louisiana is my true culinary home. In fact I’ll be using some of the techniques and recipes she taught me in a cooking competition this Sunday.
“That dog ain’t gonna hunt”
I really got a kick out of a guy in Arkansas who told me he was “as busy as a one-armed paper hanger.”
In answer to the question “How ya doin?”:
“Like a one-legged man in a ass-kickin contest.”
——–
“It’s colder out than a witch’s titty in a steel brassiere.”
——–
“She could chew up a dime and spit out eleven pennies.” (Grandpa used to say this of grandma – definitely a compliment, it meant she was thrifty)
I’m stove up.
I might could/might should do X.
He tries his best.
Lagniappe.
I’m off like a dirty shirt.
“They’re wound tighter than Dick’s hatband!”
“I’m going over/up yonder”
“That dog won’t hunt.”
“Selling wolf tickets”
“I double/triple dog dare you!”
“Goin’ to see John”
“so low you can sit on a dime and swing your feet!”
“all hat, no cattle”
“time sure did pass them by!”
“whooped with an ugly stick!”
Nuttier than a porta-potty at a peanut festival
Bless your heart
Bless your heart.
– Bless your heart
– That dog won’t hunt
– Hold your horses
– Madder than a wet hen
– About to have a come to Jesus meeting
I don’t know if this one is specific to the South: running around like a chicken with its head cut off
In North Carolina, dookie and tarhole mean very different things from the rest of the country.
Y’all’ll’all
Don’t let the screen door hit ya where the good lord split ya.
Now for all I know that phrase was dreamed up by a team of Madison Avenue advertising execs after a cocaine bender, but I like to think of it as a homey Southern saying.
“Lower than a snakes belly in a wagon rut.” For when things are going bad or someone is sick.
Bless him, he’s feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. Hope things take a turn soon….
“When you’re up to your asses in alligators, it’s hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp.”
“I’m gonna jerk a knot in your ass.”
“I’m about to stomp a mudhole in your ass.”
“You ain’t lost nothing over there.”
More frustrated that a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.
My Grandma always said “mean as a snake”
My mom likes to sarcastically say “bless your heart” which translates to “you’re a fucking idiot”
I’m fixin to whip your ass from hell to breakfast.
These are two combined and might be Mississippi specific. “Fixin to” is still common, but “from hell to breakfast” has fallen out of use and deserves redux.
“Shittin in high cotton” is probably my favorite. Honorable mention to my aunt’s favorite, “well shit fire and save the matches!”
If you got a dick like a needle, best to learn how to fuck like a sewing machine. -Texas grandpa giving me advice as a teen.
Bless your heart. The coldest of insults.
More:
A good old boy stoner saying, “We was higher than giraffe pussy.” This expression is so delightful, it is a great misfortune that it isn’t employed more commonly.
Don’t forget “cattywumpus” meaning all crooked, mixed up, askew and asunder. In summation, if there’s a right way to do it, and you gone and done it good and wrong, you got it all cattywumpus, son.
Yer’n. This here’s mine, that one over yonder’s yer’n.
“bless your heart”
Bless your heart.
It can be used in so many different contexts… from the sweet compliment to the condescending insult. Great all around phrase.
You are as slow as molasses on Christmas morning.
I’m from Texas and I wish yall could hear how I sound, it makes a difference.
Bless his/her heart
I reckon.
This summer has had me sweaten like a whore in church
I had a professor from the south that used all kinds of phrases and idioms. The one I remember was, “So, the long pole in the tent is…”. I don’t remember any others. I kinda wish I wrote them down.
Down yonder
When I get on you I am going to pay you for old and new.
A hit dog will holler.
Every shuteye ain’t sleep.
Don’t know let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
A rolling stone gathers no moss
A empty wagon makes a lot of noise.
Blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other
If you like it I love it
It ain’t what they call you it’s what you answer to
Ain’t nothing open after 2am but legs and liquor stores.
Who are your people/kinfolk?
If you gon be tired, be tired for you
Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.
Every grin ain’t a friend
Every new broom sweeps clean
Can’t never could or can’t I could?
You can get glad in the same clothes you get mad in
This grown folks business
Bless your heart
Jeetyit? Directly translates to “have you eaten yet”
I also love “more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” and “sweatin like a whore in church”
Couldn’t pour piss out a boot
“Full as a tick.”