What in Heaven’s name does this interjectory phrase mean?  Where did it come from?

I wish I knew.

My late grandmother, Kathryn Crawford Langford (1905-1995), who died in the house next door to the one in which she had been born in Brooks, Georgia, said it right often, in a variety of situations.  She might say it to mean, ”Get over it and move on.”  Or “I don’t believe what you’re telling me.”  Or “No way!”  Or “That’s just nonsense!”  Sometimes it denoted surprise, as in “My goodness!”  It’s a pretty useful phrase, but I have no idea where it comes from.

I know my grandmother is not the only one who said it; I heard it often in my youth from many different old ladies in Middle Georgia.  The late Olive Ann Burns, in her classic novel Cold Sassy Tree, has the protagonist’s mother (who would have been a generation older than my grandmother and from an entirely different part of the state — northeast Georgia) saying the same short phrase in the same exact usages.

That leads me to my second question about this elusive phrase:  was it a woman’s phrase only?  I can’t for the life of me recall ever hearing a man say it, but I’ve heard plenty of old women use it over the years.  Never anymore, but often years ago.

There is the interjection, “pshaw,” which Webster’s online says dates to 1656 and is used to express irritation, disapproval, contempt, or disbelief.   I’ve seen that in writing many times, and suppose it must be the root from which my phrase of the day springs.  I don’t know for sure, but that’s my guess.  If I’m right, then my grandmother’s (and Miss Burns’s grandmother’s) usage would simply be a matter of regional idiom and pronunciation.

Ah, shah!  I don’t reckon it really matters, but it makes me wonder just the same.

I heard the title metaphor used recently, and thought it most apropos in this weather we’ve been having of late.  Weather forecasting may become unnecessary if the current pattern keeps up; it’s either raining, fixing to, or just has.  Nevertheless, the person who used the above phrase so appropriately was describing an excruciatingly long meeting we both had endured most grudgingly, and he was absolutely right – sitting through it created a restlessness like unto that experienced during a summer week when you were a kid and it rained every day; when you couldn’t go outdoors for anything. 

We Southerners are a people of similies and metaphors, so add this vividly descriptive one to your list if it isn’t already there.

This sounds like a topic for ladies only, but it truly isn’t.  Tea cakes were a staple of cookie jars around Brooks in my youth, but seem to have ‘gone with the wind’ in recent years.   I never hear about them any more.  So I went next door to my 91-year-old great aunt, who may have been the best tea cake baker in Middle Georgia history, and got her time-tested recipe to share.  Tea cakes are best with no other sweets; their taste is subtle and easily overpowered by more assertive flavors.  Still, there are few things this side of Heaven better than a good tea cake, and I thought I’d share this bit of Southern heritage, together with a story about tea cakes from a hundred twenty years ago.  First, the recipe, which I tried and found as delicious as I remember tea cakes being:

Ruth Crawford’s Tea Cakes

1 egg, 1 cup sugar, 1 stick of margarine or butter (softened), 2 cups self-rising flour, 1 tsp vanilla

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl, kneading with your hands.  Mixture will resemble small crumbs.  Gather a palm-full and squeeze together, kneading between your hands.  Place on a lightly floured surface and flatten as well as you can.  Roll gently with a floured rolling pin, to no more than 1/4″ thickness.   Can cut no more than two tea cakes at a time.  Entire bowl-full should make approximately 2 dozen tea cakes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cook tea cakes until edges begin to brown slightly.  May or may not have slight browining on top of tea cakes.  Do not overcook.  Remove from oven and transfer immediately to a cool pan.  Enjoy this subtle but delicious taste from Brooks, GA, a taste you won’t begin to realize until after the first mouthful. 

Now for the story:  My great-grandmother, Mattie Henderson Crawford (1882-1972), lived her entire life in Brooks, dying when I was almost ten.   One day when she was a girl, her mother, a great visitor of the sick and shut-in in what was then called Brooks Station, carried little Mattie with her to go see a poor old woman in town.  Mattie’s mother told her she was not to ask for anything to eat at the old lady’s house.

Mattie was a very naughty little girl, and asked anyway.  The old woman gave her a cold biscuit.  Mustering whatever disdain a five-year-old Southern belle-in-training could muster, young Mattie took one look at the biscuit, walked to the open door, and threw it out to the yard dogs.  She turned on her high-button shoe and said, “Shah!  If I’d been at home, I’d've had a tea cake!”

I’m sure Mattie was spanked for that display of petulance, but she was right about one thing:  not much will take the place of a tea cake.   And knowing this story happened about 1887 or 1888 means that the tea cake recipe above (which comes from Mattie’s youngest daughter-in-law) has a long history behind it.

Google this phrase and you’ll come up with countless opinions as to its origin.  I’m not convinced it originated in the South, but it’s certainly had heavy usage here.  What does it mean?  To do something with slapdash effort, in short; usually with the implication that a more thorough job will be done later, when time permits. 

I can hear my mother’s exasperation when I was a child and we were about to go somewhere.  “Son, why in heaven’s name didn’t you wash your hair when you bathed?  It looks like a dadgum crow’s nest.  We’re out of time now, so c’mere and I’ll give it a lick and a promise and see if we can’t make you at least presentable.”

No one would recommend approaching the majority of life’s tasks with just a lick and a promise, but sometimes that’s all we can give something.  And as for its Southerness, can you imagine Archie or Edith Bunker ever saying it?  I rest my case that it ought to be Southern even if it isn’t.

There’s no question that this is badly substandard English.  Hearing folks who don’t know better use it makes one wince, but using it for emphasis when a speaker does know better is perfectly fine.  Just make sure your audience knows you know better; otherwise, they’ll think you an ignorant dolt.   I’ve explained that general principle in several other posts, so you should’ve done picked up on it by now.

Perhaps the most elegant deployment I’ve ever heard of this usage happened several years ago at the school my children attend (or at least attended — one has graduated.)  I was talking to the admissions director about something when the outgoing high school principal came into her office. He was leaving the school to take a headmaster’s position in another state, and everyone was sad to see him go.  The admissions director, in half-way teasing tone, told him he needed to tell that other school “no,”  and just stay in Georgia. 

The principal looked a little crestfallen.  “I can’t,” he replied.  “They’ve done found my replacement.”

All three of us are Southerners; all three of us know better; all three of us routinely use far better English than that.  But the way that principal said it was perfect — it let us know he was serious about his new opportunity while simultaneously being sad about leaving our school.

What about this arctic blast?  Land a’Goshen, it’s cold outside!  Around home, in polite company, folks’d say it’s cold as a titch’s witty.  If it’uz just menfolks listening, the beginning letters would be put back in the right order.  Somebody’d more likely than not comment that aforesaid witch was probably on the shady side of an iceberg doing pushups in the snow.  Folks might also say it’s colder’n a brass monkey (or certain of his anatomical parts, anyway, if ladies aren’t present.)  However you want to put it, it’s cold!  Too cold for the South.  Way too cold.

It’s good fireplace weather.  I was saddened on New Year’s Eve, whilst picking up a last-minute item or two from the store for my lovely wife, to see a fellow checking out ahead of me with some of those fake logs you can buy.  I reckon he was going to go home and build a chemical fire. 

 It astounds me to see folks taking the easy way out with fireplaces, for it seems to me if you’re going to build a fire, you ought to do it right.  Shoot, it’s a point of pride with me that the gas starter in my fireplace has never been used — that’s baby stuff.

The right way to build a fire is to start with a good, thick bed of ashes.  Then wad up a heaping helping of newspaper and lay it across the grate.  Don’t skimp on the paper.  Then get you several knots of lighterd and spread out on top of that.

Lighterd, for the uninitiated, is nearly petrified heart of pine.  Living on a farm as I do, there’s always plenty in the woods to pick up.  But for those who don’t live on farms, there’s no shame in buying lighterd — many stores sell it in bundles after someone has gone to the trouble to cut it into nice, uniform, rectangular strips.  I use three or four knots, typically, so I imagine it would take perhaps twice that many slivers like you buy.

Atop the lighterd, you’ll want loosely to stack two or three or four good, seasoned, split pieces of hardwood, though I like to use a little cedar when I have some available.  How many you use depends largely on the size of your firebox.  I could cut my firewood on the farm, and occasionally do; but generally I buy oak by the pickup load, already split.  If you’re going to cut your own firewood, it’s best to do it in July so it can cure properly.  That brings to mind the following adage:  he who cuts his own firewood is twice warmed, particularly if he’s cutting it in the summer as he needs to.

Once you get your fire laid out as I’ve written, strike a match or two to it.  In a few minutes you’ll have a wonderful, attractive, crackling fire in your fireplace, perfect for snuggling up beside with your sweetie.  It’s a purely natural thing, too — no chemicals, no gas, nothing fake. 

So get you some lighterd and get going.  It’s too cold not to.  And do you want to lay odds on the probability of a mini-baby-boom occurring around the first of next October?

Our older son, Niel, a freshman in college, is home for the holidays.  At supper the other night, we got to laughing about the night we heard sleighbells in Brooks — the night of December 24, 1996.

Lesley and I had just moved into my late grandmother’s house in Brooks with our boys, then aged 5 and 2.  They were wired for sound on Christmas Eve, to the point we thought we’d never get them into bed so Santa could come.

We watched a Christmas movie together; we read The Night Before Christmas.  We fixed a plate of cookies and a glass of sweet milk, and 5-year-old Niel wrote an epistle to Santa. He had a burning question to ask about the existence of Rudolph:  “Is Rudeoff the red nods render rell?”  He then mentioned the milk and cookies, and added a postscript: “Please don’t take the plate.”

Niel took his bath and was running around in footed pajamas, while Lesley was bathing Hampton.  I picked up my grandmother’s old school bell, held the clapper, and slipped outside to the pasture fence, where I rang it with great vigor.

I ran back in the house and asked Niel if he’d heard anything that sounded like bells.  “I did!” he exclaimed.

“I think it must be Santa,”  I replied.  “Y’all better get in the bed in a hurry.”

“I want to go outside and see him flying in his sleigh!”

“No, son.  Santa will fly right on over if he sees a young’un in the yard.  But maybe I can slip outside right quick and see if I see or hear anything.  He won’t fly away if he sees a grownup.”

Neil’s so excited he can’t stand it.  I slip back outside, run again to the pasture fence, and ring the school bell.  I scoot back in the house.

Niel is beside himself now.  “I heard it!  I heard it!  Was it Santa and the reindeer?”

“Yes, hon, but he saw the lights on and flew on over.”

Niel burst into tears.  I wanted to kick myself.

“I ’spect he’s gone down to the Sykeses’ house, and’ll prob’ly double back by here in a few minutes.  But you boys’ve got to get to sleep.”

Niel’s tears stopped like he had turned a faucet, and he tore down the back hall toward the bathroom.  “Mama!  Mama!  Mama!  Turn off the lights and bathe Hanton (which was how he pronounced “Hampton”) in the dark!  Hurry!   Santa just flew over!”  He whipped into his bedroom, jumped into his bed, and feigned sleep with impressive snores.  2-year-old Hampton liked to have killed himself getting out of the tub and rushing to bed.

Santa had indeed been down to the Sykeses, and he did double back.  We heard his bells one more time, and next morning, found a ton of presents, an empty plate, an empty glass, and a thank-you note from Santa.

It was a truly wonderful Christmas, one we’ll always remember.

Thanksgiving has now come and gone; Christmas season is upon us.  Beyond the religious significance of these holidays, which should ever be our main focus, is the fellowship aspect.  Much holiday fellowship revolves around the table, where cooks outdo themselves with feasts, treats, and other gustatory excesses unheard of the balance of the year.

Thanksgiving and Christmas food is wonderful.  It’s so good, as one used to hear relatively often in the South, that it’ll make you slap your grandma away from the table in trying to get to it.  Nobody from the South would really slap his or her grandmother: it’s just a saying used to communicate the incomparable goodness of something to eat.

So, this holiday season, throw diets to the wind and find all the food you can that is capable of making you want to slap grandma away from the table.  But for Heaven’s sake, quell the physical urge to lay a hand on the old girl, even though such viands may engender it;  Grandma’s no more liable to take kindly to getting slapped than she is to cooking a’tall for you in the future if you should fall for that urge.  In other words, no matter how good the food is, or how badly it may make you wish to slap grandma, keep your hands to yourself.

Merry Christmas.  May everything you eat this season test your willpower by making you want to slap Grandma away from the table, and may your good sense and raising help you to quell that hitting urge.

This is a variant on “it like to have…”, a post from several months back.  Both have the same rough meaning as “almost,” albeit on steroids.

I might say, “I ate a dish with hot chili peppers, and it like to have killed me.”  (Or course, most of us who would revert to this somewhat substandard usage for emphasis would also use the substandard pronunciation “kilt,” as in something a Scotsman would wear. Those of us who would not contract the “have” into something like “to’ve” would probably leave it out entirely.)  Similarly, I might say, “Those chili peppers in that dish might near killed me.”   For reasons I’ve never understood, most Southerners would say “kilt” with “like to’ve,” but use the correct pronunciation, “killed,” with might near.  Go figure.

More erudite usage would be “very nearly,”  as in, “Blymie, old chap, you very nearly shot my hound instead of the fox!”  While that might work in the English countryside or in some circles of America, it would come across as terribly stuffy in most parts of the South.  A Southern equivalent might be, “Damn, son!  You like t’ve shot my dawg!”  Another, directed to a third party, might be, “Watch out when that gold-plated peckerwood over yonder is shooting.  He might near shot my best bird dog!”

There’s nothing even remotely grammatical about “might near,” but we all use it periodically for emphasis.  As I’ve stated many times, there’s nothing wrong with relaxing in the language, with flouting its rules for emphasis when it’s clear you know better.  That’s one of our finest Southern traditions, one we’ll might near kill to preserve.

While I’m at it, Thanksgiving is might near upon us.  Be safe, have fun with family and friends, and remember the day’s meaning.

By DAN LANGFORD 

How’s yuh Mama an’em?

There’s a common Southern question.  For the uninitiated, it is an inquiry into the health of one’s mother, her household, and her immediate and perhaps extended family and group of friends.  “And them,” which is what “an’em” contracts, can cover right smart ground.

“John an’em wuh at th’council meeting raising Cain again,” is something I might say to someone around Brooks who knows our fictional John and his disgruntled crowd, knows exactly what the group complains about, and understands that I can save the listing of five or six more names with the use of “an’em.”

Often, of course, we don’t run the words together, but say “Fred an’ them” or “Sherri an’ them.”   I wouldn’t say it either way to anybody who wasn’t likely to know Fred or Sherri or the folks Fred and Sherri each run around with — that would be rude.

“An’em” is a term of familiarity, said by someone to someone else, both of whom know the named party and the group of folks the collective “an’em” is intended to represent.  It’s a time-honored shortcut in the South.  If you don’t believe me, go ask yuh Mama an’em.