Tag Archives: favorites

100th Post! Y’all Say Potato; We Say Tater

17 Jun

On the SSPL Facebook page, I asked y’all to vote on what my 100th post would be and this topic won unanimously (except for the vote cast by my sister for “cream of something soup,” which I’ll get around to soon).

One day, Geoff says to me: “That’s the only thing you say that makes you really, really, really sound like a redneck.” The word in question: foil. As in tin foil. For him, it has two syllables: foy-ll. For me, there’s only one. Sadly, I do not know how to spell my pronunciation phonetically, but I’ll try: Ok, I have been trying for about ten minutes now, searching the internets even, and I can’t (or cain’t) make it happen. The pronunciation of the “oi” sound (which is consistent across other “oi” words like soil, toil, boil, etc.) does not seem to be one that’s used in any other words in the English language. Or none I can think of. Closest I can come is oh’l. But that’s not it exactly. I think it’s a sound that’s nigh impossible to pronounce unless you know it from the womb (practiced your rolling Rs lately?).

Elfi Walter painted this "pitcher" of a pitcher.

Ok, let’s move on. In the South, what you’re writing with or using to attach a corsage is a PIN. Whether it belongs to you or is atop something, it’s OWN. A PITCHER might be a vessel to pour from or an image captured via camera or a guy in tight pants hurling a ball at another guy in tight pants.

Conversely, DON and DAWN are not pronounced the same way. One is a girl, duh! Also, what you sleep uncomfortably on and how you came by that mess of fish are two different things: COT and CAUGHT.

Most people are familiar with Southerners’ blatant disregard for the letter G, but did you know we also like to change letters or drop them at random? I can’t teach y’all all the variations, but here are a few: supposably, prolly (who needs “bab”?), everbody, histry, libary, chimbly, nuCUler.

This CHARdonnay has a lovely bo-kay, for a $3 bottle o' wine.

Sometimes, just to mix it up, we add letters or even syllables where they don’t belong like misCHEE VEEous or manDENtory. My mayonnaise- (or mannaise) hating friend Sandy has a talent for adding letters where they don’t belong. I can’t figure out what the system is, but when it’s cold out it’s “nipply,” or the black-eyed peas taste a little too “hamhockly.” One of her favorite things to say is, “God bless a moogy milk cow.” And I always think, shouldn’t that cow be moog-Ly?

There are a few pronunciations that are specific to my family (or at least I haven’t heard them elsewhere) like VEE DEEo (for video), Q sin air (for Cuisinart), and CHARdonnay (for Chardonnay).

But my favorite all-time mispronunciation is “Dixie.” Let me explain: Before the Civil War, the Citizen’s Bank of Louisiana issued ten-dollar bank notes that bore the French word “dix” (for 10, which is pronounced “deece”). Folks started calling them “dixies” and the name spread such that the South became known as Dixieland.* Technically, it should have been deece-ie land, but I reckon D.C. was already taken.

*This is my favorite of the three theories on the origin of “Dixie.”

What are your favorite Southern mispronunciations?

Photo credits: Chipotle card by someecards.com, pitcher painting by Elfi Walter available at etsy.com, Three-buck Chuck by GSankary from Flickr Creative Commons.

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80. Community Cookbooks (The Braille Version of Food Porn)

26 Feb

In a world of celebrity chefs, popular food bloggers and recipe sharing sites, y’all might be surprised how many Southerners still consult rinky-dink, fund-raising cookbooks put together by their local church or community organization.

Not even the Baptists consider perusing food porn a sin, nevertheless, you will find none in the pages of these DIY spiral-bound cookbooks. What you will find is good, old-fashioned recipes handed down through generations of Southern cooks. While some folks had the good fortune to work alongside grandma, learning how to make fried chicken or caramel frosting, many Southerners (myself included) did not. With these books we can at least learn how to make SOMEbody’s grandmother’s famous chicken and dumplings.

In “Florence Favorites” compiled by folks at the First Baptist Church in Florence, MS, you’ll find recipes like:

Mama Hazel’s Texas Nut Bread
Tristin & MeMaw’s Cookies
My Mamaw’s Oatmeal Cookies
Granny’s Rolls
Aunt Eloise’s Coconut Cake

And, of course, you can’t put out a local cookbook without adding at least one of these gems:

Recipe for Happiness (Page 82, if y’all are following along)

2 heaping cups of Patience
2 handfuls of Generosity
1 heart full of Love
dash of Laughter
1 head full of Understanding

Sprinkle generously with Kindness. Add a dash of Faith. Mix ingredients well. Spread over a period of a lifetime and give large portions to everyone you meet.

Contributed by Cindy Godfrey

I think her portions might be a bit off. What Southerner only adds a dash of laughter? What Baptist only adds a dash of faith? I think Cindy should have added a caveat: Your results may vary.

The amaretto's thataway!

When my sister was flipping through the book, she noticed a page where one of the recipes had another recipe glued on top of it. Obviously, a post-printing correction. But what could have gone so wrong that every copy had to be corrected by hand? They used industrial strength glue that couldn’t be peeled off, but if you squint, you can see that “Tropical Fruit Slush” covers a recipe for “Amaretto Punch” contributed by Janie Cook, who is obviously a heathen trying to sneak demon liquor into a Baptist cookbook! The nerve!!

I love how these cookbooks have 8 or 10 recipes with minute variations for Southern staples like corn bread or pecan pie. Have they no editors? At least the Baptists filtered out the racy Southern recipes for “Better than Sex Cake” or the dessert folks call “Sin,” which turns out to be the exact recipe of the dessert my family calls “Chocolate Stuff.”

Lazy Man, take note: THIS is a peach pie!

Sometimes the recipes don’t offer much in the way of explanation, such as:

Lazy Man Peach Pie

1 stick butter, melted
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
milk (to form dough)

Stir peaches into dough (part of juice). Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

The person who contributed this one was indeed a Lazy Man, but I suspect he might be a Drinking Man, as well.

The original Bells Best features a section toward the back cryptically called “Men’s, Microwave.” It ranks just about “Salads” and “Vegetables.” Probably the sections are in alphabetical order, but it seems a little suspicious to me.

Best I can tell, “Men’s, Microwave” features recipes contributed by men, along with three microwave recipes that nobody could figure out what to do with (Microwave Fudge, Hamburger Vegetable Medley, and Microwave Rice).

The men’s recipes include such delicacies as: Hobo Casserole, Deer Meat Supreme, Fried Crappie, Dump Cake (which tastes better than it sounds) and, inexplicably, Quiche.

A couple of years ago at Christmas, my nephew Jackson gave me a cookbook called “A Child’s Plate” that was a fund raiser for his kindergarten. One of the main recipe contributors was my sister, Jenna, who included dishes we learned from our mom and our two wonderful sisters-in-law, Karen and Kay. I have to say that I’m proud to see our family’s recipes printed in an actual cookbook. Even if it is one of the low-rent, spiral bound kind.

Photo Credits: 1. My paltry collection of community cookbooks, 2. “Devil’s Punch Bowl” by Aura Beckhofer-Fialho, Flickr Creative Commons, 3. “First Prize Peach Pie” by Alanna Kellogg, Flickr Creative Commons, 4. The cookbook that made my family famous.

Do you have any community cookbooks on your shelf? Which ones? Do you still use them?

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79. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit (and other Colorful Expressions).

25 Feb

Been there, done that? Buy the T Shirt!

Never do I feel more Southern than when I say something along the lines of “He was drunk as Cooter Brown” and someone responds with 1. A confused look or 2. “Who is Cooter Brown?”

Well, hell, I don’t know who Cooter Brown is. My guess would be someone who was frequently inebriated or “three sheets to the wind,” as we say.

As a Mississippi girl, I’ve been using colorful expressions since I was knee high to a grasshopper. This ain’t my first rodeo. I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.

While I have sometimes been accused of acting too big for my britches, y’all best not say I’ve gotten above my raisings. Whoever thinks that doesn’t know shit from shinola. (No, I don’t actually know what shinola is, but if the two items were displayed before me, I’m sure I could make an educated guess.)

I hear y’all saying, “You kiss your mama with that mouth?”

All right then, moving on.

Some Southern expressions might lead one to believe that we are a violent people. For example: “I’ll knock you into the middle of next week,” “I’ll snatch you baldheaded,” or “I’ll slap you nekkid and hide your clothes.” The horror!!

Even some of our compliments sound threatening, such as when we encounter something “so good it makes you want to slap your mama.” Why?? Can’t we all just get along?

Southerners have countless expressions to describe a person’s shortcomings: “Useless as tits on a bull,” “Dumb as a box of rocks,” and “Ugly as homemade sin (I’m not sure how it compares to the store-bought kind).”

My favorite is used to describe someone (usually female) who’s not exactly aging gracefully: “Rode hard and put away wet.”

Of course, any rude comments can be negated with the addition of a sincere-sounding “bless her heart.”

If the array of casseroles and cakes at the family reunion makes you happier than a pig in slop, don’t go overboard or you’re liable to end up full as a tick on a hound dog. Oh, I know you want just one more slice of red velvet cake, but people in hell want ice water. (Unless they’re Southerners; they want sweet tea.)

When it’s hotter than blue blazes, let’s hope you have air conditioning (“Good lord willing and the creek don’t rise”) or you’ll be sweating like a whore in church.

All right, y’all, it’s audience participation time. What are your favorite expressions?

Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log! It’s on like a chicken bone!!

Photo credits: Shirts featuring sassy Southern sayings available from Sweeteashirts.com.

Cooter Brown’s sign by erjkprunczyk, Flickr Creative Commons

“Butter my butt” postcard and other fabulous letterpress items available at YeeHaw’s Etsy store.

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59. How to Sound Southern: Accent the First Syllable

19 Jan

Photo by Tom Hynds, Flickr Creative Commons

I’ve never been particularly drawly, even less so having lived outside the South for lo these last 16 years. However, my Dixie tends to slip out around midnight, when I’m too tired (tarred) to add a “g” to the end of every word. You’ll also hear a drawl if I’ve had one drink too many (or maybe that’s just a slur). And if you hear me chatting with my Mississippi peeps on the phone, you might think you’ve happened upon an extremely low budget remake of Steel Magnolias. (I’ll be the one playing Ouiser.)

Considering my non-drawliness, I was surprised when Geoff called me on my pronunciation of ordinary, everyday words. He said, “Say I-N-S-U-R-A-N-C-E.” It took me a few moments to figure out what on earth he wanted me to say. (I can hardly ever spell things aloud, which is why I have a hard time around small children.) When I figure it out, I say, “INsurance.” He says, “It’s pronounced inSURance.” We argue about this for as long as it takes him to pull up some bogus pronunciation tutorial on the Internet that agrees with him.

Once he’s on a roll, he gets me to say words like HALLoween, THANKSgiving, TEEvee, UMbrella, and JUly (which sounds like JEWly).

I had never before noticed that folks in Seattle had such freakish pronunciation. teeVEE? thanksGIVING? Seriously?

Of course, I immediately consulted my Southern friends to assess their pronunciation. Sure enough, we tend shift the emphasis to the first syllables of certain words, Merriam Webster be damned!

I can’t tell you why we do it anymore than I can tell you how folks manage to stretch my name into three syllables: KEE-EE-UM.

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