By DAN LANGFORD

“Plumb ducky” is a phrase used sarcastically in the South to mean everything is not okay. “Plumb” is a adjective meaning “completely;” while “ducky” is another meaning “satisfactory or fine.” No one uses this phrase in its literal sense, though; it always means the opposite.

Mr. Vernon Woods was a man in my hometown of Brooks, GA who never, ever cursed even once in his life so far as anyone knew. One day in the 1970s after a church dinner on the grounds, my granddaddy dropped a leftover bowl of banana pudding as he was pulling the church door to. It splattered all over the place, but Mr. Vernon took the brunt of the spill.

My stately and refined grandmother, who never in her life cussed except to say a single thing — “Dammit, Hubert” — said it at that moment to my grandaddy. All she had was little droplets of banana pudding on her stockings. Mr. Vernon’s brand new polyester suit was ruined by Grandaddy’s clumsiness, and he had every right to be mad. What he said in the heat of the moment exemplified the use of the phrase under examination. “Hubert,” he intoned with disgust, “that’s just plumb ducky.”

By DAN LANGFORD

I saw a friend of mine last week who came to Georgia 20 years ago from the Midwest to work in the construction industry. He had read my inaugural posting and wanted to know why I hadn’t mentioned “winders,” which he said he heard all about in home-building when he first came to Georgia. I told him that nobody with any class or breeding would ever say “winder” — the correct pronunciation of the word “window” for any native Georgian of good social standing is “win’-duh.” We could, of course, say “win’-dow,” but that would sound uppity. Who wants to sound like an accent-less TV talking head? “Win’-der,” on the other hand, just goes way too far toward the other extreme.

“Win’-duh” sounds just right — not uptight and not hillbilly. So let’s all open our “win-duhs” now and enjoy the fresh spring breezes.

Dan Langford

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: (more…)