Well it certainly isn’t an expression around here.
@Pizzagirl, I moved to Michigan in 1957 when I was six years old and only ever used #9 and 12. I have heard schnookered, although not in reference to anyone we knew! I’ve also heard of #1 and 14
I do still occasionally use an old expression that my New Jersey grandfather often said when we were children, hotsy totsy. At the time it was the equivalent of fancy schmancy.
*Despite its Southern flavor, “bless your heart” got its start in English literature, according to linguist Joan Hall, the editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English. The earliest usage in print is in Henry Fielding’s 1732 play The Miser. In it, a butler says of a new mistress who’s bought beer for the domestic staff, “Bless her heart! Good lady! I wish she had a better bridegroom.”
Today, the usage is so predominantly Southern that Charles Wilson, the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, calls it “an in-term” that shows that the speaker is from the South.
Rivenbark agreed. “If I hear someone from the North use this expression, it makes my skin crawl,” she said.
The usage is mainly by women. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man use it,” said Anne Randolph, of Washington, whose family has lived in Virginia for more generations than she’s counted. Nor do women she knows use the phrase insincerely, she said.
That doesn’t apply to politicians, said John Monk, a reporter for the newspaper The State, in Columbia, S.C.
"I think (former Sen.) Jesse Helms said it to me once when he meant, ‘I want to kill you and squish you like a bug,’ " Monk said.
The indirectness of an insult wrapped in kindness “really expresses the Southern way of doing things so well,” Wilson said. “It’s part of the system of manners in the South.” *
http://www.chron.com/life/article/Bless-your-heart-can-be-a-Southern-blessing-1903314.php
*No, we do not say “Aw, that sucks.” Because the content is obvious and the phrasing tacky.
No, we do not say “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” Because it too strongly emphasizes the speaker’s own negative feelings.
No, we do not say “Whoa, I can’t believe that.” Because, quite frankly, we have a tradition here of believing almost absolutely anything.*
…
*From what I gather, people seem to think that blessing someone’s heart is an act of sarcasm. But sarcasm is not what we do here. Sarcasm is what Northern folk do. And teenagers.
This is the land of William Faulkner. Of Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers. Of Poe (yeah, that’s right, Poe is OURS). What we do is tragicomic, pseudoreligious, humble effrontery. It is paradox. Not sarcasm.
This is the Gothic, as recounted by an unreliable narrator. Our blessings transform into curses, and no one can even distinguish the difference between them.
So to say that “bless your heart” is merely a “catty” expression is to miss the point entirely. For if someone properly blesses your heart, I guarantee that you will have no idea whether you are being consoled or insulted. That is where its potency comes from. Anyone can issue a sarcastic remark. Anyone can throw out a nasty retort. What only the grotesquely poetic literary mind of the South can do is to destabilize your very hold upon reality in the course of a casual conversation.*
https://indirectlibre.com/2016/01/21/on-blessing-someones-heart/
- And, really, Southerners have some of the best expressions in the cosmos, like caddywompas, smack-dab, that dog’ll hunt, fixin’ to, hissy fit, hell’s half acre, light’s on but nobody’s home, baby girl (affectionate term for a female of any age), little pea-pickers, high-falutin’, braggadocious. And my all-time favorite yet slightly backhanded and condescending comment: Well, bless your heart.*
http://deepsouthmag.com/2016/04/15/susan-swartwouts-southern-gothic-poetry/
Someone up thread said something about people in Maryland saying “yes mam…” I’ve lived here for 40 years and can’t think of anyone from here or north of here saying that. Relatives from South Carolina say it often, especially the younger generation to older generations. It’s a show of respect when they say it.
I’m from Ohio. During HS, we went on a choir tour to VA. This was the conversation with a diner waitress:
Choir member: what kind of pop do you have.
Waitress (after a long pause): oh…he is a nice guy.
Raised in Maryland by Maryland born and bred grandparents @1214mom , and that’s how we were taught to address elders as a sign of respect. That being said , I may be a little older than you.
Okay, I’m 100. I don’t get some of these. What does throwing shade mean?
And what does bye Felicia mean?
“Bye, Felicia” is like saying “bye, no one really cares that you’re leaving.”
The only way I’ve heard “bless your heart” used is “bless [his/her] heart” - never directly to the person.
We’ve discussed the sir / ma’am thing on here a dozen times already – and whether it is a term used towards ALL elders, or only strangers whose names you don’t know and with whom you are not intending to start a relationship.
@Pizzagirl "on here " as in CC or this thread specifically?
My very southern grandma used to say “well take the ribbons from my hair” if you told her something she didn’t know. 
On CC. Do a search; you’ll find plenty!
Several of the “Midwestern” expressions were very familiar to me as a one born/raised in the NE. Now, in the south, I’ve occasionally heard “you poor dear” and “bless our heart” used synonymously.
When in the north, we said “you guys”. In the south it’s occasionally “you all” but don’t know anyone other than in rural areas or Waffle House using “y’all”.
People I know with PhDs, who divide their time between southern cities and European capitals, teach in universities and write scholarly books, use y’all in conversation, at least with other southerners. It really isn’t that unusual. And it is not any kind of affectation. It is just how they talk when they are at home, in the south.
And doctors and lawyers and bankers use it as well.
Disagree completely about “y’all.” It was used all the time in Texas during my 30 years there, is used frequently here in TN- including in court and in the professional workplaces- and I use it (even when I’m not at Waffle House). You must travel in a circle of mainly northerners who are transplanted! "Y’all is a very highly used phrase- and I travel around the south. I do agree that “you guys” was the phrase I used growing up in the northeast.
Yes, y’all is NOT limited to rural areas in my experience. I’ve noticed that Stephen Colbert uses it sometimes on his show when addressing the audience. That seems pretty natural to me–I think a lot of Southerners continue to use it even if they move away. I lived in New England for 5 years and never really stopped saying y’all. I did stop using “coke” as a generic term, and probably stopped saying some other Southern things.
I never realized that “fixing to” was a Southern thing until I moved away. I did stop saying that after some time away, but I’ve picked it back up.
Well, in the metropolitan area where I am, “y’all” is in my experience, now less commonly heard outside of restaurants and surrounding rural areas. This Is based on my 35+ years in this state and several more (6) in another southern state.
Stephen Colbert initially went to Hampden-Sydney and then transferred to Northwestern. He has noted that when he moved up, he a) changed the pronounciation of his name from Col-bert to Col-bear and b) deliberately dropped his South Carolina accent. But maybe the y’all sneaks out!
Speaking of regionalisms, my FIL is from Pittsburgh and he says “warsh” for “wash.” He’s an educated man and it drives me slightly nuts!
If anyone loves learning about language, accents, linguistics (I do), the Language Log blog is a great one.
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu
My Missouri cousins and my dad all say warsh. Never noticed that my dad said it until we were at a family reunion in Kansas City and everyone was pronouncing it the same way.
My BIL (Kentucky) says “what’ll you give for this?” meaning what will you pay for something. He and my sister also say that something “needs done,” eliminating “to be” between the two words.