Southern folks...

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jltrent

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1. A possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.

2. There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the South.

3. There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 of them live in the South, plus a couple no one's seen before.

4. If it grows, it'll stick ya. If it crawls, it'll bite cha.

5. Onced and Twiced are words.

6. It is not a shopping cart, it is a buggy!

7. Jawl-P? means: Did you all go to the bathroom?

8. People actually grow, eat, and like okra.

9. Fixinto is one word. It means I'm going to do something.

10. There is no such thing as lunch. There is only dinner and then there's supper.

11. Iced tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking it when you're two. We do like a little tea with our sugar. It is referred to as the Wine of the South.

12. Backwards and forwards means I know everything about you.

13. The word jeet is actually a question meaning, 'Did you eat?'

14. You don't have to wear a watch, because it doesn't matter what time it is, you work until you're done or it's too dark to see.

15. You don't PUSH buttons, you MASH em.

16. Y'all is singular. All Y'all is plural.

17. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect, or animal.

18. You carry jumper cables in your car for your OWN car.

19. You only own five spices: salt, pepper, mustard, Tabasco, and ketchup.

20. The local papers cover national and international news on one page, but require 6 pages for local high school sports, motorsports, and gossip.

21. Everyone you meet is a Honey, Sugar, Miss (first name), or Mr (first name).

22. You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.

23. You know what a hissy fit is..

24. Fried catfish is the other white meat.

25. We don't need no dang Driver's Ed. If our mama says we can drive, we can drive!!!

AND one more:

26. Why did the chicken cross the road? To show that stupid possum that it CAN be done!
 
In my experience "fixinto" sounds far too articulate for most southerners. "Fixina", "fissina", or "finna" would be more accurate.
It is "fixing to". Means getting ready or about to start. Those other terms I have never heard. Born and lived in the south forever. So plenty of experience hearing, interpreting, and speaking southern. But there are plenty of dialects.
 
It's a mix of southern and Appalachian mountain dialect here. Most is kind of similar but with some regional nuances.
Lots of accents and dialects in different regions of the state. Up close to Ohio it's definitely not a southern accent. Seems like the first noticeable difference is how words like I and my are pronounced. The more northern accent pronunciation rhymes with pie, why the way we say it is like with a long I sound or a sharper version of ah. Had some friends down in southern KY, that would always say "you'ins come see we'ins when somebody was leaving.
By the way, somehow a list of things southern and yet no mention of grits.😄
 
VA has a number of accents and sub accents, too. You've got SW Va which is like Eastern KY. Long "I" sound and different contractions. Where in my part we say "I haven't" they say" I've not etc".
Then you've got an area around Roanoke that has a little different sound. Only hear it in the old "natives". Eastern shore has it's own and the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, Central and Southside have their own. One big thing is "Rs" sound like "ah" as in "ste ah" for steers. Over is Ovah. Some never "take" or "haul". They "carry" everything. Highland and some of Bath counties still retain a little different pronunciation to some words. Stockyard sounds a little like stalk yard.
Some theory about the difference between East and West of the Blue Ridge is how they were settled. "East Virginia" was settled up from the coast by mainly English. West side was settled mostly by Scots Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania. The Scots kept a more "rhotic" sound and pronounced their "Rs". Even so, Kenny, JL, cfpinz and I could meet up and understand each other. :) Well, mostly😂
I enjoy listening to different accents from other parts of the state and nation.

I always wonder why they feel they have to subtitle the so called hillbillies. I can understand them very well. :)
 
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A couple I don't quite comprehend but most I get the gist of. I know there is a lot I say that some of you folks don't understand.
Have a great arvo.

Ken
 
When I bought my place in NW Arkansas one of the first guys I met owned a sawmill and was living in a rented house set on piles of rocks for a foundation. Not a stick of furniture in the place, just piles and piles of discarded clothing. He had a son that came across as inbred... but they were the nicest people. They ended up buying a place of their own and moving their mill. They began to build a two story house, post and beam, next to the mill... and while they were building they lived in a shed they built of two layers of slab wood with Visqueen between to keep the wind out. A wood stove in the middle of the floor and they slept in the piles of clothing they brought with them. And once they had the shed built the construction on the house stopped...

Of course I assumed the guy was a local with many generations of hillbillies in his ancestry. He was from California...
 
VA has a number of accents and sub accents, too. You've got SW Va which is like Eastern KY. Long "I" sound and different contractions. Where in my part we say "I haven't" they say" I've not etc".
Then you've got an area around Roanoke that has a little different sound. Only hear it in the old "natives". Eastern shore has it's own and the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, Central and Southside have their own. One big thing is "Rs" sound like "ah" as in "ste ah" for steers. Over is Ovah. Some never "take" or "haul". They "carry" everything. Highland and some of Bath counties still retain a little different pronunciation to some words. Stockyard sounds a little like stalk yard.
Some theory about the difference between East and West of the Blue Ridge is how they were settled. "East Virginia" was settled up from the coast by mainly English. West side was settled mostly by Scots Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania. The Scots kept a more "rhotic" sound and pronounced their "Rs". Even so, Kenny, JL, cfpinz and I could meet up and understand each other. :) Well, mostly😂
I enjoy listening to different accents from other parts of the state and nation.

I always wonder why they feel they have to subtitle the so called hillbillies. I can understand them very well. :)
A few years ago 4 of us from Virginia were in Abilene working the west TX fires. One from Southside, 1 from Charlottesville, 1 from the Shenandoah Valley, and me from the southwest mountains. The people there could not believe that we were from the same state.
 
One of my early travels away from Arkansas was to New Hampshire. After finishing our supper, the waitress asked if we wanted any strawbewwie shawtcake.

Home was via Atlanta. We had a plane swap and layover, so we found a place in the concourse to eat. After eating we walked upon a very pretty young lady about my age, pushing a hotdog buggy. She locked eyes and said "cain I fix y'all bowz a howt dowg?" We ate again. Fell in love with her accent
 
I was thinking Pine Bluff
Did some engineering work for that paper mill in Pine Bluff. There is a little crime there. People at the paper mill told us to not go out after dark! While visiting, remember that a person was robbed in the drive-thru line at Wendy's - in the day time. Good seafood place there, Leon's - catfish, shrimp, frog legs, and cholesterol. Good bbq place, Kibbs. Go before the sun goes down. Lots of farming and chickens in that area.
 

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