By Dan Langford
Guides to, and commentaries on, speaking Southern get a lot of things wrong. It’s not because they portray our ways of talking as humorous or that they’re prone to exaggeration – we all need the ability to laugh at ourselves, and every good storyteller needs to shade things a bit every now and then to keep them interesting. Instead, these guides and commentaries are flawed in the following areas:
• They are always very general; as if Southerners from Richmond to north Florida, from coastal Carolina to inland Arkansas, sound exactly alike.
• They always seem to gravitate to the speech patterns of the lowest common denominator socially or educationally; and in doing so contribute to the hateful national impression that we are a backward people.
• There is no good way to express in writing the liquidity and cadence of a human voice. A Georgian and a Bostonian both may pronounce “car” as “cah,” but the Georgian will draw the word out over a couple or three seconds, almost making two syllables out of it; while the Bostonian will clip it off in a nanosecond. Capturing this lilt of voice on paper is impossible, which means that none of the guides and commentaries (this one included) can possibly get it exactly right.
• Compounding this difficulty is the process of phonetically spelling the way any of us says things – our usage may be perfectly grammatical, but spelling it as we say it makes it look automatically substandard.
I wouldn’t presume to write about Cajun, or Gullah, or Appalachian or any Southern manner of speech I may have heard only in passing. To do so would be almost as condescending as having a New Yorker discourse on the subject. What I can write about is a very narrow topic – standard English as is and has long been spoken by people of good background and breeding throughout much of Georgia’s piedmont, lower foothills and upper flatlands. If you are not a person of some refinement or education from this area of Georgia, do not know such a person, or are not possessed of some slight academic interest in the subject of how these Georgians speak, then honesty impels me to tell you this commentary is not for you.
One absolute exists in English usage everywhere; namely, that, while one may write beautifully standard and grammatically-correct English, one never speaks nearly so precisely. Local or regional dialect affects speech, and what sounds normal in one place may incorrectly sound substandard in another. Moreover, even one’s normal speech, reasonably precise as it may be, may lapse briefly into poor grammar, slang, or sentence construction so long as the lapse is intentional, is done for emphasis of a matter, and so long as the listener understands full-well the intentionality of such lapse. In other words, those who possess impeccable grammar are at blissful liberty to ignore it whenever they please.
Here’s an example, written as phonetically as I’m able to render it, of what I myself might say (in fact, have said) emphatically to a wayward teenager. “I’m fixin to take yo cah keys away, boy, an’ I ain’t gonna give ‘em back till you show me you’gn behave.” (The only ungrammatical utterance in the sentence is my use of “ain’t,” which my son knows I know better than to use formally, but which adds just the right emphasis to the stern message I’m conveying. The rest is just dialect – good, solid, raised-right usage in the part of the world where I’ve always lived.)
Look at the verb “fixing.” Most of us, in speaking, would drop the “g” and say “fixin,” as in “I’m fixin to carry Mama to get her hair done.” Allow no supercilious Yankee to tell you this usage is ungrammatical. Webster’s says “to fix” means to repair or to prepare. Thus, “I’m fixin the kitchen faucet” is a fine example of repairing, while “I’m fixin to go to the store” is an equally fine example of preparing. Even some Yankees fix supper (well…we’ll get to that in a minute), and they certainly aren’t repairing it when they do. Just don’t mix the usages in the same sentence. “I’m fixin to fix supper” is an abomination which points to a paucity of vocabulary.
Georgians don’t usually “take” people places, we “carry” them. Admittedly, that’s dialect; however, Webster lists it, so don’t laugh when we use “carry” to mean “convey.” We know perfectly well what we’re talking about, and messing with our dialect might cause our murderous tempers to flare. Georgia’s late Senator Herman Talmadge (1913-2002) was a master of communication. Once asked about a trash-talking opponent, the erudite Senator replied, “Waaaalllllllll, I knew his daddy. He, too, was a sumbitch.” In those few words, the Senator managed simultaneously to exhibit a keen comprehension of grammar, a putrid distaste for an adversary he deemed unworthy, and a dialect and delivery that would’ve been at home most anywhere in Georgia.
Yankees don’t really fix supper – they fix dinner. Dinner is the traditional Southern title for the midday meal, unless the viands happen to be light fare like Vienna sausages or sardines and soda crackers, all of which one may call “lunch.” The evening meal is “supper,” and for those of us of the Christian persuasion, the fact that supper was good enough for the sweet Lord Jesus Himself ought to make it good enough for us. “Soda crackers,” for the uninitiated, are called “Saltines” in other parts of the country. That somehow reminds me of “sweet milk,” which is what we used to call regular milk to differentiate it from buttermilk. Both are delicious, suitable for drinking alone or for crumbling hot cornbread into and eating with a spoon. Either one’s so good it’ll make you slap your grandma away from the table. (Don’t ask me why we say that – I suppose it’s to express extreme eagerness to get to something.) The late humorist Lewis Grizzard (1946-1994) wrote that his father, who was from Snellville, Georgia, often said, “Son, thez nothing in th’ world bettuh’n a good, cold glass of buttuhmilk. I’m convinced it’ll heal the sick and raise the dead.” I couldn’t agree more, and might just fix myself a glass directly.
If I’m not fixing to do something (which means “right now”), I might plan on doing it “directly,” which means “in a little while.” It’s old English and is pronounced something like “terrectly,” which, in fact, is how Atlanta’s Margaret Mitchell spelled it in Gone with the Wind. Atlanta, of course, is Georgia’s capital city, and today contains more Yankees than when General Sherman came through in 1864. Don’t listen to how the imports say “Atlanta” – listen to how the natives say it (which, by the way, is good advice no matter where one may go.) It’s something like “At-LAN-na.” No one from these parts pronounces the second “t,” and the jury is out as to whether the first syllable should be “At” or “Et.” It’s really too close to call. A metropolitan county, DeKalb, is pronounced “duh-CAB,” with no voice given the “l.” While the next two places are not in Georgia, they’re major Southern cultural centers, and we should all strive to pronounce them as their respective natives do. “Noo-WAUL-ins” and “CHOLL-ston” – New Orleans and Charleston, garden spots, both. You may have known that already, but an occasional refresher does us all good.
“Already.” Now there’s a word that can grate the Southern ear. Georgians of proper birth and breeding who have not outgrown their raising always — I repeat always — use “already” as an adverb (which you’ll remember from English class is nothing more than a sort of adjective for a verb) meaning prior to something. Some examples of this usage are “I already know that,” “I’ve already done that,” and “By Wednesday, they’ll already be gone.” You get the picture. What Southerners don’t do, not ever if they’re true to their native region, is use “already” as an intensive, as in “Enough, already,” “Shut up, already,” or “Get off my case, already.” We leave such Yankified talking to real Yankees. Such usage isn’t wrong per se, it’s just wrong for us. Who among Southerners wants to sound like a honker from New Jersey?
“Honker” doesn’t rate a high mark on a political correctness scale, probably, but we really don’t mean anything bad by it. It’s just that certain northern voices and accents from the upper Eastern states sound to us more like car horns than human voices. Car horns honk, so we sometimes call people who talk like this “honkers.” It’s just a saying, and Lord knows, we have plenty of those. A smattering of Southern sayings follows, together with a few purely Southern definitions:
• “Like a blind hog stumbling upon an acorn” – an expression and admission of pure luck
• “I’m going to see a man about a dog” – what I’m fixing to do is none of your damn business
• “Like putting perfume on a hog” – a useless attempt to improve something not improvable
• “Somebody better pick cotton” – quit talking and get busy doing something productive
• “I’m going to sell you to the Gypsies” – a light-hearted parental threat
• “Crank the car” – we realize automobile technology has advance beyond the Model T, but we’ve retained this phrase for the starting of our vehicles
• “Vaccinated with a victrola needle” – a light-hearted reference to someone who can’t stop talking
• “Full as a tick” – sated (unclear whether “tick” refers to an insect or a mattress)
• “Drunk as Cooter Brown” – heavily intoxicated (Cooter Brown, by the way, supposedly lived right on the Mason-Dixon Line at the time of the War Between the States. Eligible for draft by, and having family on, both sides of the conflict, he decided to stay drunk for the duration of the War to keep himself ineligible.)
• “Half-lit” – on the verge of intoxication
• “Poor as Job’s turkey” – completely impoverished (reference is from Old Testament Book of Job, naturally)
• “Pissing contest” – a useless argument in which hurtful and argumentative things are said
• “Don’t eat the seed corn” – admonition against living so lavishly that you dip into savings
• “Big for his britches” – aspersion for someone who has shown arrogance in his accomplishments or stated goals
• “Outgrown his raising” – similar to “big for his britches,” but has more to do with one who is ashamed of his background
• “Fourteen-carat son-of-a-bitch with spare parts” – a mean and nasty male
• “The Late Unpleasantness” – the War Between the States
• “The War” – the War Between the States
• “The War of Northern Aggression” – the War Between the States
• “The War Between the States” – our name for what folks from other parts of the country call “The Civil War”
• “Damnyankee” – a northerner who moves here who doesn’t have sense enough to know that we don’t care how things were done back home, or who is condescending toward us and our Southern ways
• “Dressing” – a mixture generally consisting of crumbled cornbread and biscuit, onion, celery seed, sage, and chicken or turkey broth which is baked in a pan (never inside a fowl), cut into squares, and served alongside the fowl, preferably with giblet gravy.
• “Stuffing” – something inside a pillow, cushion, mattress, beanbag, etc.
• “Soda” – white powder (sodium bicarbonate) often used in baking
• “Pop” – a nickname occasionally used in the South for a father or a grandfather
• “Soft drink” – a non-alcoholic beverage that is usually carbonated (the terms “coke” or “co-cola” are often used generically for such beverages, as well. People used to come into my grandaddy’s store and pull orange or grape co-colas out of the drink box.)
• “Sack” – something in which groceries are bagged at the supermarket
• “Get tickled” – begin laughing
• “Tempus sho’ do fugit” – a way of remarking upon the swift passage of time with levity
On that note I will concede that I have used a bunch of your “tempus,” and state my regret in having to “fugit” away soon. [And Yankees think we’re not an intellectual people! See how well we use Latin? A prayer borrowed from our mediæval British ancestors which has been said for nearly a century and a half in the South might be more convincing: A furore Normannorem libera nos, Domine! It means, “From the fury of the north men deliver us, O Lord!”]
Seriously though, educated Southern English as it is spoken through much of Georgia is a beautiful, lilting, melodious language. It’s as different from “redneck” English as British Cockney is from BBC English. The influences of television and northerners moving to our state have somewhat eroded its distinctiveness over the last generation, but it still manages to show a rather awesome resistance to change. People from other parts of the nation love to hear Southerners speak, and if we can all keep some humor about us, we can have a good time with our differences in speaking.
The late Congressman Robert Stephens (1913-2003) from Athens (who had grown up in Atlanta) was a good example of what I mean. A jolly little elf of a man with a brilliant mind and great personality, he served for many years in the U.S. House of Representatives. One day a House Committee upon which he served was interviewing a man named Moorhead. Congressman Stephens, in his upper-class drawl, kept referring to the witness as “Mistuh Mōhead.” A Midwestern congressman got tickled at this pronunciation, and posed a question intending to share his levity with the assembly: “Does the gentleman from Georgia not realize that the witness’s name, Moorhead, contains the letter ‘r’?”
In mock indignation, Congressman Stephens replied in his slowest, most deliberate tone, “Does the gennelmun from _____ think the gennelmun from Jawja a fool? Of cōse Ah reelize th’ name Mōhead contains an ‘ah’! If it didn, it’d be pronounced ‘Moo-head’, an’ yonduh witness sho’ dudn look lak a cow t’ me!” The room broke up.
May we glory in differences of the spoken word, and may any fun we poke at each other’s ways of speaking be just that — good-natured fun.
Dan Langford has not strayed far from his deep Georgia roots. He is the seventh generation of his family to live on the same farm in Brooks, Georgia, a town named for one of his ancestors. He is the author of the 2003 book History of Brooks, Georgia, and is co-owner and executive editor of 20 South Magazine.
through the Flint’s bends around Pine Mountain and Sprewell Bluff State Park, you’ll never guess that you are in Southwest Georgia. From the initial launch site east of Woodbury, the journey travels for four days across the Piedmont, meaning four days of rapids and shoals and a trip through what is arguably the most scenic stretch of river in Georgia. From the fall line, the river descends into the high coastal plain where it remains remote and wild. Unlike previous Paddle Georgia’s, this year’s route doesn’t pass through “civilization” until the final day of the trip when we enter Montezuma and Oglethorpe. In fact, it is the first Paddle Georgia that does not travel beneath an interstate highway.
was a boy growing up on the last farm standing in rapidly developing Roswell, Georgia. He and his wife Janna, along with daughters Ellen (19) and Betsy (15), now live in Peachtree City in a house with a two-and-a-half car garage. A Honda occupies one side of the garage, the obligatory Peachtree City golf cart the one-half. The rest of the space is taken up by five bikes and a mint condition 1963 red Massey-Ferguson MF35 tractor from his father’s Roswell farm.
usually gets rated moderate to difficult.
around. Several years before the invention of the mountain bike, I rolled down dusty dirt farm roads, across fields and pastures, and through the woods to ever new adventures. Like the state song by Ray Charles, “Georgia” does “reach out to me”, calling again and again with another road to go down, another trail curving temptingly out of sight. Photo: Jim Qualls