Things Only a Southerner Knows.....
by LDH 13 Replies latest jw friends
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COMF
(ahem) As I was saying:
Knows what, "Well I Suwannee !!" means.
It means "I'll swear," and the quote is incorrect. It's actually, "I'll swannee," or "I'll swan." Swannee is the corruption of "Suwannee River" that Stephen Collins Foster used to keep the rhythm in his song, "Old Folks at Home." Nobody ever says "Suwannee."
Why "I'll swannee?" Because southern folks had a right proper fear of the lawd God, that's why. They knew it was sinful to use strong language, and they didn't want to bring the unbridled wrath of the God of the Hellfire and Brimstone Southern Baptists upon themselves by cursing (thereby cursing themselves). So rather than say, "I'll be damned," they said, "I'll swear." But even the use of that term was spooky and liable to danger, so they edited it a bit just to be sure the Lawd knew they weren't actually swearing. "I'll swear" became "I'll swannee."
A similarly G-rated substitution for a curse word ("cussword" - let's pronounce it correctly, please) is "I'll vow," also once common throughout the south.
COMF
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XJWBill
All right, chillen, time for spelling and grammar lesson:
1. "Y'all" is a contraction of "you all." The apostrophe comes after the Y, and there is only one A.
2. Contrary to what you may hear in the movies, NO NATIVE SOUTHERNER EVER USES Y'ALL EXCEPT FOR THE SECOND PERSON PLURAL, addressing two or more people--NEVER just one.
Once on a long trip by myself, I pulled off the Interstate to get gas and coke at a store deep in the country. When I went to pay the clerk, he startled me by asking, "How far are y'all travelling?" But then I realized he could not see my car and had simply assumed I had family with me--therefore the plural reference.
BTW, y'all, a "mess" of anything (but most often fish or vegetables) is "enough for one meal" for an individual or for the whole group gathered at the dinner table. Check your dictionaries for the etymology, which also gives us phrases like "mess hall" and "officers' mess."
LDH, thanks for the list--very funny. By your leave, I'll copy and send to some friends.
Bill, American by birth, Southern by the grace of God! [><]
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XJWBill
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