This is EXACTLY what I was going to write. That was my experience, growing up in Texas, and I still visit frequently.
My dad says, “Let’s light a shuck!” meaning, “Let’s hurry!” Not sure where that comes from.
This is EXACTLY what I was going to write. That was my experience, growing up in Texas, and I still visit frequently.
My dad says, “Let’s light a shuck!” meaning, “Let’s hurry!” Not sure where that comes from.
I don’t even know if I would call it “snarky”. It’s used to sort of soften the blow before you offer a less than positive statement, such as “Well, bless her heart. She’s bringing that runny lasagna to Bunco again!”
I never heard “Meat and Three” before I moved to Tennessee. It wasn’t a “thing” in Dallas. (It’s a restaurant/menu description consisting of a choice of a Southern-style meat (chicken, meatloaf, fried fish etc) and 3 vegetables of your choice.
D and i are thrift store hunting for a work table right now and our favorite phrase all morning is “seems legit” .
Thought of another one. Going “up north” here is meant like going on a vacation anywhere in Michigan. You go “up north” even if your destination isn’t north of where you are.
We use “look it” instead of "look at it. " And crayon only has one syllable.
I only recently found out that “doorwall” isn’t a commonly used term. (It’s what we call the sliding door going to the backyard. )
Go home, you’re drunk is also common.
“Goin’ upta camp” is what Mainers say when they go to their cabin in the woods.
“Ha! My very Southern grandmother used to say “the devil is beating his wife behind the kitchen door.” Now, how did THAT phrase come about? Who knew that Satan had a kitchen?!”
Isn’t there a TV show Hell’s Kitchen?
I’ve always understood “on the nose” to mean accurately, precisely. Lately, I’ve seen it in media reviews, usually with a qualifier such as “a little” or “too”, as a criticism, meaning overly direct or unimaginative.
“Does anyone here say “That’s a fine how do you do”? My husband never heard of it, and when I think about it I don’t hear others say it. I assume I picked it up from my mom but where did she get it?”
Consolation, my grandfather said that (born / raised in Philadelphia).
I have always irrationally liked the word “bluestocking” (which means an intelligent, literary-minded, serious woman - has a little bit of an old-maid connotation to it). I must have read it in literature when I was a child. A few years ago, I was in front of 25 people at a client and I needed to express that idea and out of nowhere, the word bubbled out of me. No one knew what the heck I meant, so I just carried on!
(Riffing off that, there are certainly cultural references that I had to be careful not to use in front of clients, since they dated me - such as referring to a kindly doctor by invoking Dr. Marcus Welby, or a small town sheriff by Andy Griffith, or describing dated, out of style music by invoking Lawrence Welk, or something showy by Liberace.)
I grew up in the Midwest and always saud “pop” when referring to a carbonated drink. After living on the east coast (DC and MA) for 34 years, I now say soda.
Another Midwestern phrase that I no longer use: “are you coming with” which means “are you coming with me/us.”
@Bromfield2 pop is a abomination. Soda all the way
Pop and soda are both abominations. Every Southerner knows that all soda/pop is/are really just Coke.
For whatever reason, even though I grew up in the Northeast, I do refer to most soda as Coke as opposed to soda. My H says soda and I have one kid who says soda and another who says pop (though that’s mostly to annoy me, because pop is what you call your grandfather). God only knows why!!
Here’s another regionalism - what you call grandparents. I called my grandparents Nana and Pop-Pop, which is far more common on the east coast than in the midwest. We always have a hard time finding Nana cards - they are all grandma cards. I remember hearing that Hallmark ships far more Nana cards to the east coast and very few to the midwest.
I’ve always thought that “bluestocking” was a sexist word, the implication being that an intellectual, literary woman would necessarily be frumpy or dowdy. It has a dismissive whiff to it. At least that’s the connotation is has to me.
@Pizzagirl -that was me that asked.
I wonder if it’s more generational than regional.
We use Grandma and Grandpa and soda.
nottelling - I agree that the word bluestocking has a frumpy / dowdy vibe to it. It was precisely what I needed to express, and I did so in front of a bunch of people who just stared at me blankly
Several of these colloquialisms make me immediately recall movies that I’ve watched:
Nana and Pop Pop: The Visit
“That’s a fine how do you do”: A Million Ways to Die in the West
Years ago (late 70s), when I was on a high school exchange, my host family (in NH) kept offering me tonic with dinner. I didn’t know what to think because the only tonic I knew about was my dad had tonic water as part of his liquor/bar setup.
I didn’t know that tonic = soda.
I married into a ‘pop’ family. I’ll always be a soda gal. Sometimes it is a whole 'nother language.
(For those hair clip things – I say ‘bar-ett’. He says ‘bret’)
I have only used ‘Bless your heart’ as a compassionate ‘I’m sorry that happened to you’. I don’t think I’ll be using it in the future wondering what others might think.
Pop or soda - I use both.
We use Nana and Papa. (I can’t wait to hear a little one call me Nana!)
A few I remember my dad saying - a few bricks short of a load, not playing with a full deck, and not the sharpest tool in the shed - this was in the 60s.
“Sharp as a sack of wet leather”
“A few bulbs have blown out in that marquee”
referring to a water fountain as a “bubbler” (bubblah), hair bands are “elastics”, barrettes are “burretz”.
Anything cool is “wicked”.
When you go to the grocery store, what is the thing you put your groceries in? A bag, or a sack? I grew up saying bag - to me, sack implies cloth (like a burlap sack) but I know to other people it can mean paper.