Speaking Southern

By Ellen Samsell Salas

I became envious of the Southern gift for gab while attending a Shakespeare seminar in Brunswick, Maine.
One would expect a deeper understanding of the Bard’s verbal virtuosity to have been my linguistic takeaway from those six weeks. But it was the lexicon of a classmate, a teacher from Alabama, who awakened me to the Southern knack for putting together just the right words. Iago wasn’t merely evil, he was “pond scum.” And Othello wasn’t simply crazed with jealousy, he was “hot as the hinges on the gates of hell” and “havin’ a hissy fit with a tail on it!”

Truth be told, I was “getting my knickers in a knot” and green with envy at my friend’s ability to create expressions that dazzled with images, sound, metaphor, and exuberant hyperbole — everything we expect poetry to deliver — all while being rooted in the everyday. After all, as a native Californian, what colorful colloquialisms could I contribute except the addition of “the” to the moniker of all highways, as in, “Take the 101 to the 405.”

Decades later, a transplant to Georgia, I remain enamored with Southern phraseology.

To start, there are the oft-uttered phrases, part and parcel of Southern parlance that are both apt and endearing. “Welcome in,” “Yes, ma’am,” and “Have a blessed day” make the speaker polite and fill the room with warmth.

Two other workhorses, “y’all” and “fixin’ to,” are handy and efficient. “Y’all join us” is so much friendlier than “You guys join us.” And “fixin’ to” leads seamlessly into any number of possibilities, as in “fixin’ to come up a black cloud” and its cousin “comin’ up on some bad weather.” Can’t you just see that black cloud filling the sky, ready to pour down rain or whatever manner of trouble is brewing?

The lifeblood of Southern vernacular is its unabashed kinship with real life. Without a drip of pretension, speakers rely on animals, vegetables, food, and weather to make their point. When you hear, “He could eat corn through a picket fence,” those widely spaced buck teeth are front and center in your mind’s eye. And could there be a better way to convey futility than saying, “You’re driving your chickens to the wrong market” or “That dog won’t hunt”?

But my favorites have to do with biscuits, a Southern staple with which we salad-loving Californians have minimal acquaintance. Chock full of alliteration, imagery, and a bit of the absurd, two tried and true biscuit-reliant phrases say it all: “You can put your boots in the oven, but that don’t make ‘em biscuits.” And, the more alliterative, “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit if that don’t beat all,” a phrase that one just wants to repeat.

So, while the world turns to BFF, NVM, and LOL, we can be happy that Southern colloquialisms are alive and kicking. Take a little sarcasm, add a heap of exaggeration, spice it up with a metaphor borrowed from real life, and you have a Southern quip. And, bless my heart, I’m learning to love biscuits and not worry about the calorie count.