Things Only a Southerner Knows: 2nd try

by COMF 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  COMF

  I can't reply to the original thread, but maybe starting a new one will work.

  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 swear word, or curse word ("cussword" - let's pronounce it correctly, please) is "I'll vow," also once common throughout the south.

  COMF
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  joelbear

  LOL.

  Great post. I'll swannee was something I heard a lot growing up and something that still slips out every once in a while.

  Thanks for the grin.

  hugs

  Joel
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  joelbear

  Oh and by the way mommy,

  Any state with the word north in it ain't really in the south y'all.

  hugs

  Joel
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  safe4kids

  Hey ya'll!

  If I missed it, I'm sorry but I don't recollect seeing the "I reckon" phrase...as in, I reckon it might rain....or better yet, It's comin' up a cloud...reckon it'll rain?

  Thanks for the southernisms! Some of these I haven't heard in years. I know a lot of folks think Florida doesn't qualify as a 'true' southern state due to the influx of northerners but I'm a native (albeit without much of an accent anymore ) and a lot of my family came from backwoods of Georgia...how do ya'll like my credentials?? lol
  BTW...has anyone mentioned the "Bubba" phenomenon??

  Dana

  "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."
  Somebody else
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  safe4kids

  BTW....what about southern insults?

  Gotta couple:
  Ugly as a busted blister(my personal fav)

  Yer dumber n a piece a rope!

  Anybody got any others???

  Dana

  "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."
  Somebody else
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  SixofNine

  I'm fixin' to read this thread. I reckon it'll sound about normal to me.
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  reagan_oconnor

  How 'bout this one...

  "Slicker than deer guts on a doorknob."

  A transplant from Georgia taught me that one. I nearly peed my pants the first time I heard it.

  "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
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  LovesDubs

  Hey Safe4..where you at in Fla? Im near West Palm. Orig from Chicago. I wouldnt say this state qualifies for south. The voices I hear at the Publix are mostly Islanders...and thats like Long Islanders or Bahamas or Cubans, Puerto Rican, or Jamaica. LOL! There are so few here that are native. My next door neighbor is native. She has several cars/jeeps/boats/trailers/campers/storage huts/dogs in her yard. The cars that are functioning get parked on the front yard. They have no driveway or garage. She's in her late 50s and rarely wears a bra, her husband has a beer belly like a 9 month preggers gal and few teeth...they both smoke end to end. Their friends all own trucks or swamp buggies with wheels the size of small states that require a step ladder to get up into. She planted a row of rapidly growing palms along her side of the fence for "privacy" last year...Im thinking GROW PLANTS GROW!! Privacy from what? My anally attended half acre of land and well groomed kids? :P Perhaps its US who are the scary ones! :)

  The other natives down the street have chickens, roosters who are on California time, 6 dogs and a confederate flag on their "house." The women do all the work, the kids always smell like cigarettes and greasy food and the men spend all their home time on the couches watching the too-large-for-the-room wide screen TV drinkin beer. They too have few teeth...whats with the DENTAL problems down here??

  Yep...its been a culture shock from suburbia :)
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  XJWBill

  OK, folks, time for spelling and grammar lesson:

  1. "Y'all" is a contraction of "you all." There is only one A. The apostrophe goes after the Y to show where something has been left out. Compare "don't" and "can't."

  2. Contrary to what you may hear in the movies, NO NATIVE SOUTHERNER EVER USES Y'ALL EXCEPT AS SECOND PERSON PLURAL, referring to 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 little country store. When I went to pay the clerk, he startled me by asking, "How far are y'all traveling?" But then I realized he could not see my car, and had merely assumed I had family with me, as many travelers do--hence the plural reference.

  3. FYI, 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 of the word, which also gives us phrases like "mess hall" and "officers' mess."

  4. I've never heard the use of "Ought!" as someone else mentioned on this board. Once again, contrary to Hollywood ignorance, the South is a big place with many variations of speech and custom. Those of us lucky enough to be born and raised here can tell the difference between a Georgia accent and an Alabama accent, for example, both of which are very different from a Louisiana or a Texas accent.

  There are also differences between mountaineers and lowlanders, city and country, educated and uneducated, all of which are instantly recognized by us natives but ignored by Hollywood. We are not all rednecks and white trash.

  LovesDubs, be advised that all of Florida south of, say, Gainesville is merely the southern province of New York, and New York can have it. As to your neighbors, you have my sympathies. I'm sure there are NO trashy people whatsoever living in Chicagoland, right? Must be paradise, simply paradise!

  Bill, American by birth, Southern by the grace of God! [><]
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  larc

  I lived in Fla. outside of Miami for two years. I got the idea that the southerners had pretty much given up each coast and inhabited the interior. I heard them referred to as Florida Crackers. Once a friend and I drove across the state on "Aligator Alley." We stopped half way for a beer. The bar was run down and the owner had his pistol laying out on the counter. We drank our beer quickly and left - didn't seem like a welcome place for Yankees to us. Yes, I heard several people down there call us Yankees. Where I came from up north, we didn't much talk about southerners, though I know there is prejudice up here too.