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.

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.

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.

By DAN LANGFORD

“Po’ly” is the last health term we’ll discuss, at least in this series.  It’s a contraction, of course, of “poorly,” which term should require no further elucidation.  One who feels poorly, or “po’ly” as most of us say it (whether as natural pronunciation or exagerrated dialect), feels rotten, terrible, God-awful, or almost-dead.  It’s hard to feel worse than “po’ly.”

One might feel “po’ly” because of disease, virus, food-poisoning, or any number of things.  Arthritic people (or those who have engaged in more physical exertion than they normally partake of) may be so “stove up” that they feel “po’ly.”  I have no clue what the derivation of “stove up” is, but it basically means one is so stiff and sore he or she can barely move, and therein lies another term I believe is altogether Southern.

Here’s a sentence that uses both terms:  “Luther is feelin’ right po’ly since he split firewood on Sar’dy — he’s so stove up from swingin’ that maul he can hardly get out of his easy chair.”

An obvious goal for us all as we head into Fall and Winter is to avoid first-hand knowledge of the terms “stove up” and “p’oly.”  Fair to middlin’ all the way!

By DAN LANGFORD

“Tolerable” is a grand old word.  When used to describe one’s health in much of the South, though, it’s middle syllable is dropped.  “Tol’able” is the result.  (Many of us, in speaking do the same thing with several other words — “prob’ly” and “lib’ry” come to mind right off the cuff, for, of course, “probably” and “library”.)

When it comes to health, “tol’able” is a versatile term.  Usually it means something on the order of “not terrible,”  “acceptable but not terrific,” etc.  In this meaning, one who is tol’able is less well than someone who is fair-to-middlin’ or just plain middlin’.

The rub is that “tol’able” is a word of great nuance.  It can be used, and is by some, to cover all the territory between “so fine I can’t stand it” and “so sick I want to die.”  Thus, one who says he is “tol’able” may actually be healthier than one who is fair-to-middlin’.

In short, “tol’able” can meant anything from “pretty darn good” to “pretty darn bad” when it comes to describing health, and one must often rely on non-verbal aspects of communication — such as body language, inflection, etc., to determine how someone is who says he is “tol’able.”

Make sense?  Probably not, but that’s the way of it.

By DAN LANGFORD

Next down the line from “fine as a frog’s hair” is “fair to middlin’,” or just plain “middlin’.”   Both mean about the same thing, though someone who professes to be fair to middlin’ may be a shade friskier than one who’s just middlin’.  The first, in more modern language, probably means “I feel pretty good.”  The second is more like “I’m allright.”

People of all classes use these terms — some, totally seriously; and others, to revel in the color of our Southern language, as has been discussed in several past entries.

So, if you can’t be fine as a frog’s hair, I hope you’re at least fair to middlin’, and that you’ll stay that way until Part 3, where we’ll discuss the very versatile term “tol’able,” which happens to be next on the scale by most definitions.

By DAN LANGFORD

Any follower of this blog knows by now that Southern speech is full of color.  There is no exception when Southerners talk about their health.  Even the most learned among us will oft revert to the old-time Southern way of describing how we feel.  All the four phrases denoting health condition that come to mind are quick ways of painting a pretty realistic picture, without giving what my dear, departed friend, Mrs. Helen Woolsey of Brooks used to call an “organ recital,” which no one wants to hear.

I’ll take the conditions one post at a time; hence, today I’ll only discuss the first.  It’s used when someone is exceptionally well, on top of things physically, mentally, spiritually, and in every other conceivable way.  When one asks a Southerner in such prime condition how he or she is doing,  one might be liable to hear, “I’m fine as a frog’s hair, thank you!” in reply.

I’m not sure where that phrase comes from, but if a frog has hairs, I’m more than certain they’re so fine as to be nearly invisible.  I’ve certainly never seen hair on a frog, so it must be fine if such a thing exists.

A twist to this phrase is occasionally heard when someone is truly self-actualizing, is on the mountaintop taking in the view.  “I’m fine as a frog’s hair split twice.”  That, my friends, is mighty fine indeed, and the short, simple phrase conveys as much meaning as a full paragraph or two of more conventional but less vivid language.

Stay tuned for parts two, three, and four — middlin’, to’lable, and po’ly — which I’ll discuss in turn over the month of September.

By DAN LANGFORD

Two successive stops on the sliding scale of Southern eccentricity, curious and peculiar were once heard right often in the Southland.  Today, with TV’s pervasive influence and the second Yankee invasion, about all one hears is “weird,” which is a much broader and less descriptive word than the two I mention.

“Peculiar” is the stronger of the two words, and probably comes closest to today’s “weird.”  I can almost hear my late grandmother saying about a particularly offbeat member of a right eccentric family, “All those Stinchcombs are right curious, but Martha’s plumb peculiar.”

It’s okay to be “curious” in the South.  In fact, it comes close to being a badge of honor.  We cherish our eccentrics, and the most lovable of them tend to fall in the “curious” basket.  “Weird” is simply too strong a word for these folks, and is liable to get you cut.

“Peculiar,” though, is on the other side of the line — a continental divide, if you will.  Somebody who’s peculiar has so flaunted or outright ignored the rules of society that folks tend to keep their distance.  The brand of peculiarity with which one is afflicted tends to govern whether it’s a shying away or a downright shunning, but folks who are peculiar have basically taken good old Southern eccentricity a little too far and made spectacles of themselves.

That’s my take on these two words, which are ever more descriptive than today’s generic “weird.”  Let’s not let them fall out of general usage.

By DAN LANGFORD

My last post was on gumption, that wonderful Southern word which describes someone with backbone and courage.  In a similar vein is the term “stem-winder,” which I’ve heard in the South all my life.  It’s used to describe someone who is an interesting and usually entertaining character, as in the following true three-sentence story about a former mayor, now deceased, of my hometown of Brooks, Georgia:

“I can’t believe Allen Putman had those truck tires dumped in the middle of town back in ‘86, and after pouring kerosene on them and setting them afire, stood down both the county fire department and sheriff, telling them he by-God was mayor of Brooks and could do whatever he damn well pleased.  You couldn’t ever tell what Mr. Allen was going to do.  He was a real stem-winder!”

While the terms “gumption” and “stem-winder” don’t particularly go hand-in-hand, I cannot recall a single stem-winder I’ve ever known who didn’t also have a healthy dose of gumption.  Thus, I believe they are related.

There are other terms for “stem-winder,” of course.  I’ve covered “spizzerinctum” in an earlier post, and though it’s a slightly stronger term in my judgment than “stem-winder,’ they’re awfully similar.  One might also hear, “He’s a real caution,”  “she’s a sight in this world,” “he’s a cutter” (which I presume stems from one who “cuts-up”), or “she’s a mess.”  Usually all of these are said with exclamation points at the end.

I have no idea of “stem-winder’s” derivation, and while the following hypothesis is nothing more than a guess which I hope is somewhat educated, I suspect it comes from mechanical toys which one winds and watches go.  “She’s a real stem-winder!  Wind her up and watch her go!”

Maybe I’m wrong, but who really cares?  “Stem-winder” is a time-tested Southern phrase, and it frankly describes a lot of Southerners one meets.  Enjoy watching the stem-winders in your own personal orbit.  They’re almost guaranteed to make one laugh…and laugh…and laugh, and they’re usually the folks one remembers most.