Southernisms – The Sequel

Today feels like a good day for a little light-hearted fare. So if you’ll allow me to play Mr. Language Person (with apologies to Dave Barry) then let’s dive right in to a few more southernisms, shall we?

Astute and/or long time readers of this page may recall (and it should be easy since production numbers have been pretty low this year) a semi-recent post in which I referenced my immersion into the dialect of the American southeast. Of course I’ve been compiling additions to the list since the seed for the original post was planted with the intention of doing exactly this, so, without further ado, here you are.

One afternoon, a handful of weeks back we had one of those days where it was simultaneously sunny and raining. Not exactly a rarity on par with finding a four leaf clover, or hitting the lotto, but pretty uncommon nonetheless. When B² asked me if I knew what this phenomenon was called, I must admit, my first thought was not “Oh good, more fodder for the blog!” But it might’ve flashed in almost instantly after, as she told me…

“It means the devil is beating his wife.”

I’ll pause here briefly, to kinda let that one bounce around your brain as it did mine…

I’ve gotta say right here, I had no clue what she was going to say; but that particular group of words, in that particular order, was not something I would have ever guessed prior to hearing them. And, even though I didn’t doubt what she was saying was, in fact, a thing, I felt the need to go ahead and GTS that phrase. Lo and behold, it’s an actual thing here in the south.

Now, for your further education (because, hey, I’m nothing if not helpful) and in no particular order, here are more of my favorite Southernisms-

Let’s say you’re sitting outside, enjoying a lovely evening. Save for one thing. Getting dive-bombed by those blood-sucking, little, flying bastards aka mosquitos. And they’re feasting on you. You’ve been “bug bit”. As in-

“I was sitting in the carport but I had to come back in, I was getting bug bit.

Or suppose you’re spending your Saturday morning by strolling around downtown. You’ve decided you’d like to stop by the farmer’s market for some fresh, home-grown produce. As you’re making your way leisurely around the center of town you encounter an acquaintance and, in passing, you casually mention you’d like to stop by said farmer’s market for some peaches. (This btw is getting near to the end of the season for them and if you happen to be traveling south, I encourage you to grab some, they are amazing.) Your friend has a warning for you that includes the Southernism “get gone”. This is how the conversation might go-

“Honey you’d best get there right now before they get gone”

I feel like I should point out here, that both of the examples above are not in a southern dialect. I’m still y’all-less. Mostly. I did throw one out recently (to other drivers. I know, right? Who could’ve guessed?) but I’m not sure it counts since I was in Illinois when it happened. And it still feels disingenuous on my part to start trying to speak like someone that has spent the better part, or all of, their life living in the south. For better or worse, I’m a midwesterner and my speech patterns, ingrained for lo these many (many. Many. MANY.) years are with me to the end. And I’m ok with that fwiw.

Moving on, here’s another southernism, kinda. It’s something near and dear to my heart and tbh it took me by surprise just how wonderful I found it to be. Hand Pies (trust me, the capitalization is deserved). These things are the real deal, yet based on my childhood I never expected them to be. Most, if not all of you are likely aware of Hostess fruit pies. They were, in my case, a random, pleasant addition to my parents trips to the grocery store. And they were fine when I was 12. But at some point you realize that they are, in essence, cardboard quality pastry dough with jelly smeared on the inside, and watered down glazing on the outside. Again, it was fine for the childhood me, but I outgrew them and, as an adult, never really had the conscious thought of “I need to buy some next time I go to the store.” Living down here I’ve seen Hand Pies (I’ve made the editorial decision that, henceforth, just as RVCB’s! will always have an exclamation point, Hand Pies shall always be capitalized.) on menus in a few different southern comfort food type restaurants, and tried them at one of my favorite places in my town. And that one was significantly better than the commercially made product of my youth. But recently we stopped in at a coffeehouse/bakery in Winston-Salem on a visit to the parents of B² , at a place called Lavender and Honey. On the display counter I noticed a collection of Hand Pies, peach in this case, and they looked amazing. Better than the ones I’d seen here previously. So I ordered one. Can I just take a minute here while I flash back on that in my mind?

OH MY FRICKIN’ GOD IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!

Like, incredible as in I heard a gospel choir in full throat busting out in my head when I stopped to think about them just now.

Fluffy, light, flavorful, lovely. I mean they were so damn good I’m compiling a list of felonies I’d be willing to commit just to get another one. It’s about a 45 minute drive up there, so it’s not like I can just hop over and get one. I mean, of course, I could do that, but I’ve got to have some semblance of restraint, you know? Especially when I consider how hard it was to get into my suit last weekend. Oof. Go ahead and insert a “fat guy in a little coat” mental image here if you like, cause god knows I tried to insert one into the post and couldn’t. But yeah, that’s pretty much spot on.

I guess that’s about all I’m going to attempt here today. Except for one more thing. I think I’m going to start a new ‘feature within the feature’ kinda thing starting with today’s post and continuing until I forget to do it. Whenever I work on a post, for basically as long as I can recall, I’ve got music playing. Whether blaring (oops, I mean rolling along at an audibly safe level) through my headphones, or on the rare occasions I write at home blasting through the, well if I’m home alone it’s rockin’ through the whole house. But since I’m currently at a coffeehouse I’ve got Foo Fighters racing around my brain. This is in tribute to a video I saw this morning. It was from last night’s FF concert at the Forum in Los Angeles and it featured a performance by Nandi Bushell. If you’re not familiar you need to GTS this young lady, she is the absolute shit. Last year, at the ripe old age of 11 she challenged Dave Grohl to a drum off and she killed it. They kept up the video correspondence culminating in her walking on stage and playing “Everlong” with the band last night. I’ll try and save you a little legwork, click here to watch this, now 12 year old, genius rock the eff out. I sat there the whole time with a big, stupid, grin on my face watching, I hope you enjoy it just as much.