How well do you know your southern slang? – IOTW Report

How well do you know your southern slang?

Tuesday, 17 July 2018, 20:45 BFH Uncategorized 55

~What’s a mosquito hawk?

~You just mashed something-

you pressed an elevator button

you drank good whiskey

you made a girl blush

you aced a test

~What’s this mean?  “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

~ What does “the devil is beating his wife” mean?

~What’s an alligator pear?

~What happened if you got sneetered?

~What are clodhoppers?

~He’s nervous. He’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of __________?”

~What’s cattywampus mean?

 

 

55 Comments on How well do you know your southern slang?

  2. ~What’s a mosquito hawk? ~ a dragonfly or a fly lure
    ~You just mashed something- ~ usually dropping something heavy on a digit, as in ‘I mashed my finger w/ a hammer’ syn. ‘wanged’
    you pressed an elevator button ~ kinda self-explanatory, as in ‘push’ a button
    you drank good whiskey ~ I do try … every chance I gets
    you made a girl blush ~ embarrass a young lady
    you aced a test ~ passed a test
    ~What’s this mean? “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” ‘with a prayer & some luck, we can ace that test’ … ’round here we say ‘Good Lord willin’…’
    ~ What does “the devil is beating his wife” mean? ~ sun’s shining & it’s raining
    ~What’s an alligator pear? ~ them damned avocados
    ~What happened if you got sneetered? ~ snookered
    ~What are clodhoppers? ~ oversized shoes
    ~He’s nervous. He’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of ‘rocking chairs’?”
    ~What’s cattywampus mean? ~ it went all messed up

    17

  4. Mashed = Squashed or pounded
    Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise = how Hank Williams would sign off at the end of his radio performances
    Clodhoppers = Shoes or boots
    Long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs
    Cattywompus (or Kittywompus) = Discombobulated

    Not bad for a NJ transplant in CT!

    9

  5. I’ve lived in south Florida since I was six and only know about half of those.

    However we who live here know that redneck south stops at about Clewiston.

    7

  8. ~What’s this mean? “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” – I’ll follow through on the promise unless there are some extraordinary unforeseen circumstances beyond my control.

    Clodhoppers are big, clumsy shoes. For example, your parents bought shoes for you to grow into.

    6

  9. The ones I recognize:

    ~ What’s a mosquito hawk? Dragonfly.
    ~ You just mashed something- You squashed it flat (?).
    – you aced a test – You got 100% right (or close to it),
    – “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” – if everything goes O.K.
    – “the devil is beating his wife” – It’s raining and the sun is shining.
    – alligator pear – An avocado.
    – clodhoppers – big shoes or boots
    – like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
    – cattywampus – all screwed up or misaligned

    Not familiar with “sneetered”. Must be Deep South.

    Not familiar with alternate meanings for the other ones.

    7

  11. ~What’s this mean? “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

    It’s a promise with an escape hatch.

    I’ll be there and on time – unless something happens I have no control over.

    When you hear it, they may mean to be on time, but don’t bet the farm on it. They already told you it might not happen.

    As opposed to: “I’ll be there come hell or high water”

    Now that’s commitment. You can tell if he is a man-of-his-word or a bullshitter by that one.

    8

  16. ~What’s a mosquito hawk?
    A large bug that looks like a giant mosquito. I’ve always heard they eat mosquitoes. They are also called crane flies: http://english-fly-fishing-flies.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/olive-daddy-longlegs-crane-fly.jpg

    ~You just mashed something-
    Broke something?

    ~you pressed an elevator button
    You pushed it to engage the elevator.

    ~you drank good whiskey
    Glub, glub

    ~you made a girl blush
    Made her embarassed.

    ~you aced a test
    Got an A, or even just passed it if you were an F student.

    ~What’s this mean? “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”
    If your luck holds out.

    ~ What does “the devil is beating his wife” mean?
    ?

    ~What’s an alligator pear?
    ?

    ~What happened if you got sneetered?
    What happens when you drink too much al-kee-hal (corn squeezin’s).

    ~What are clodhoppers?
    Big shoes.

    ~He’s nervous. He’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of __________?”
    Rocking chairs.

    ~What’s cattywampus mean?
    Out of order or skewed.

    7

  17. clodhoppers

    If the largish work boots you’re wearing aren’t getting mud clods caked on them, you’re either doing it wrong or don’t really need those clodhoppers.

    9

  18. Total stepping through the looking glass thread. Had no idea. This is like the time when I found out all those people blessing my heart…..weren’t really blessing my heart.

    10

  20. Richard Cranium July 17, 2018 at 9:19 pm

    Now y’all just wait a cotton picking minute..

    You put a g at the end of pickin?

    Admit it, you’re really a Yankee.

    14

  21. Guess I am a man without a “country”.
    Born n raised in the hills of swva and don’t cotton to none of them exceptin the skeeter hawks, but I know em as very large skeeter lookin fellers(sneaky ain’t they?) and since theys eat skeeters fur a livin’ we’s uns don’t swat em.

    4

  22. Jethro July 17, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    What’s a nit picker?

    Nits are the lice eggs you pick off a head. They are very small and require a thorough, meticulous job of it.

    Thus, anyone who pours over something in detail, and finds every last flaw, is a nit picker.

    8

  26. Claudia,

    Crane Fly larva eat mosquito larva in that stagnant water. The adult Crane Flies do not eat any other insects.

    It always amusing to get a call from some fresh Yankee transplant that’s freaking out over the HUGE mosquitoes in Texas. Yeah, not mosquitoes. Pretty harmless. Truly just an annoyance that’s easy to deal with, but you’re better off leaving them alone because their larva eat mosquito larva. Sometimes you just let nature be.

    Then I get the call about Cicada Killers. Now that’s a ginormous scary looking, but harmless, wasp that makes most people nervous.

    5

  27. Yea well BFH probably hasn’t found a Cotton Mouth in his garage yet. Rumor has it you smell them before you see them. Great, a freaken snake with bad breath. Nooooo thanks.

    4

  28. This was an easy test 🙂

    Southern born. Southern bred. When I die, I will be Southern dead!

    American by birth. Southern by the grace of God.

    What is the difference between a yankee and a damn yankee?? A damn yankee won’t go home!

    We really don’t mind you livin heuh amungst us. Jest don’t tell us how you used to do it back home……we don’t care. If you don’t like it heuh, Delta is ready when you are.

    Congrats Molon!!!

    10

  31. I’m not upset one iota about this supposed “back track” by Trump.
    What’s the back track? What’s the back track that has any impact whatsoever on the left gaining anything?

    I’m not defending Putin. I think the prick may have very well been meddling, and I’m not going to die on any hill defending that little prick.

    My main concern is the left trying to draw dots from Putin meddling to Trump collusion.
    That’s my battle.
    The desperate dot connecting from “Putin meddled” Trump is not legitimate -> Hillary won.

    That’s my battle.
    Putin can eat shit.

    11

  32. A few more Southern expressions, some with a definite Texas influence:

    “That dog won’t hunt.”
    “He’s checkin’ his eyelids for pinholes.”
    “If it harelips the Governor.”
    “We thought maybe you died and the hogs ate you.”
    “He’s drivin’ one of those ol’ drunk cars.”

    8

  34. “I’m not upset one iota about this supposed “back track” by Trump.”
    I am. That’s not Trump. That’s not our guy. That’s not at all our guy. That’s a clear sign of weakness, fatigue. Did Mueller get to him with the sudden switch in agenda? Maybe. God knows they’ve thrown everything they can at him. It’s starting to show, taking it’s toll. How do we show this guy our support? I hope I’m misreading him.

    5

  35. A mosquito hawk is not a dragon fly. It is a flying insect that looks similar to a mosquito but about a half inch long. Usually gets in when you open the door but you don’t kill it as folk lore says it eats skeeters. If you don’t know what those words and phrases are, yous a yankee, so git.

    5

  36. Trump is fine, Fur. He hardly sleeps and wakes up, fresh, each day. I don’t know how, but, yep, he doesn’t backtrack …..just skates around the stanchions the deep state, the stupid progs and the globalists toss in his path. He’s facile and quick, but doesn’t backtrack. ….smile…

    If they don’t shoot him, all will be fine. …..Lady in Red

    5

  37. I heard and (probably) used all these phrases whilst growing up in Central Illinois, somewhere near Peoria. So I don’t think they are particularly Southern. However, I did get treated to them a little bit more in the 1980’s, when my wife and I were living in Tennessee.

    5

  38. It looked like a back track to me, and it is a bad time for it. I don’t think it’s a Trump/Putin thing, I think it is a Trump/USA thing. We are just 4 months ftom the mid-terms and we have to hold both the house and senate.

  39. I’d check her for ticks = She’s purtty!
    Pitch forks and hammer handles = Heavy rain
    Tighter’n Dick’s Hat Band = Cheap Skate
    Hotter’n a Six Peckered Nanny Goat = REALLY HOT

    2

  40. Hey, y’all! Kin we do Irish slang and idioms (and insults!) next? Youse would laugh yer arses off! (Just turn off the autocorrect while typing those gems.)

    5

  41. Molly Moocher – aka morel mushroom.
    Snake Doctor – aka dragon fly.
    Poke – aka paper bag.
    Hotter than a five dollar gun – it’s darned hot outside.
    Well, Jesus drank wine – it’s ok to have a glass, now and again.

    2

  42. “Dadof4 July 17, 2018 at 9:30 pm ”

    Yankee?

    Them’s fightin words, Dadof4.

    I blame teh speilchucker.

    Edit: How in the hell does ya quote a post around here? Can somebody point me in a direction for some help?

    2

  47. Richard, I’ll try to put it here how to do the block quotes.

    You put the word blockquote between the < and the other one at the beginning of everything you grab with copy.

    Then you finish with a /blockquote between the < and the other one.

    Yikes! I can't put the other one in because it considers it an html thing when I do! It has disappeared every effort I made with that.

    Uncle Al seems to be know the trick of actually putting these things together in a post without it turning into an actual blockquote, but I'm not that sophisticated with this.

    I also keep a file on my desk with these blockquotes ready for a filler so all I have to do is paste in-between them whatever I'm grabbing with select & copy.

    BTW, this file also holds my name and email so I can just grab them and paste them instead of typing them in with the high possibility of errors.

    This qualifies as an example of giving hard jobs to lazy people – because they'll find the easy, but sure, way to do things.

    This is why you see my posts have my name and avatar all the time. I never really noticed when the browsers stopped remembering the fill-ins because I didn't do auto-fill in the first place.

    2

  48. @Vietvet JULY 18, 2018 AT 12:20 AM
    @OpenTheDoor: Not to be a nitpicker or anything, but I believe it’s “like grease
    through a goose”

    Well we always said “Like SHIT through a goose”, which makes more sense if you ever spent time around a goose.

    Most of these expressions I heard all the time as a kid growing up in SOUTHERN California, but my dad grew up just across the river from Louisville KY, so maybe these were southern expressions once upon a time. Haven’t heard some of them in a coon’s age!

    3

  50. “What does “the devil is beating his wife” mean?”
    – It’s when the sun is shining and raining at the same time.

    “He’s nervous. He’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of __________?”
    He’s nervous. He’s like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers.

    “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”
    – Making every effort to do something as long as nothing interferes.

    “What are clod hoppers?”
    -Big old boots or large clunky shoes.

    “Mosquito hawk” sounds like an actual bird, but if not, it sounds like a large mosquito, we called a “gallon nipper”. You could expect a nice size welt/bump from their bite.

    Growimg up in Illinois, I heard a lot of Southern phrases. Didn’t know much about “mash” until I moved to the South.

    2

  52. So I’ve kinda split my years betwixt and between the North and the South…. when we moved to TN in 2014 I got stymied by one…

    When someone told me “I don’t care to do it”.

    I thought I had offended them asking them to do something. This is in fact them telling me they’re okay doing it.

    Got it.

    Now I use it to mess with more recent refugees from the North (usually IL like us)

    2

  53. Momma grew up in Arkansas. She has trouble remembering to call them dragon flies. To her they’re “snake doctors.” We have us some fun with Momma and her stories of growing up Arkansas during the Depression.

    2

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