Learning Southern

  By this my fourth winter in the Mid-South, one necessary goal has been to understand and speak “Southern”. I’m not there yet, but locals declare I’m making progress.

Instead of “Hello,” they say “Hey” as a friendly greeting like, “I just called to say hey”. My Thesaurus adds these synonyms: howdy, welcome, bonjour, buenas noches, buenos dias, etc. It’s a multi-purpose term sharing abundant good will. (I’m still figuring out all of its applications.)

I know now that when someone says, “Bless your heart,” it’s not with a sweet tone accompanied by a gentle pat on the head but in a pitying voice, as if your situation is helpless—nothing can be done for you. It even appears on an overhead Mississippi highway sign: “Think you can text and drive? Bless your heart.” That may mean onlookers have already notified the police and called medical staff to come pick up the pieces.

I’m told if someone’s really unhappy with you, they might say, “You’re meaner than a junk yard dog!”

Try this challenge. “Y’all’d’ve”, is the triple contraction of, “You all would have.” An example is, “We could have met y’all there if y’ll’d’ve just waited.”

I’m told to avoid gallinippers, a Southern term in folk tales and minstrel and blues songs describing large mosquitos or insects with a painful bite or sting. When my sons and I spent one summer working near the Arctic Circle, locals called the massive whining mosquitos divebombing us, “Alaska Airlines”. In the south, gallinippers are the affiliated airline.

But my favorite southern terms are those I learn in water aerobics class. Our energetic instructor sometimes stops me cold as I try to understand instructions. She tells us to push our hands up and down to our “behonkus”. Our what? I stand motionless until she notices and says, “You know, your ‘behonky,’” which I see must mean posterior. I didn’t think I’d find that term on the internet, but I did—it originated in Southeastern Louisiana as slang for buttocks, “He fell flat on his behonkey.”

When I told our coach I didn’t understood what some terms meant, she erupted in her wonderful rolling laugh that’s so cheerful I’d like to bottle it because even it has a southern drawl. When she shouted, “Shut the front door!” I stood motionless again. Our pool doesn’t have a front door.

“What about the back door?” I asked, and she chortled harder. I’ve never had a more fun exercise class. Traci Johnson is the most affirming encouraging coach I’ve ever known. I miss her and these fine southern people when I’m up north, but their kindness and endearing expressions stay with me.

I know fun folk songs in dialects that I pass on to my grandkids and students because I don’t want them forgotten and lost. What about you? What regional words warm you when you see or hear them? Please share. Such terms make us rich.