Here's a bit of *Southernese* (and damned near each *area* (I do not speak *Alabamian*) has it's own particular *accent*.


Howdy - A warm and friendly informal salutation. Short for “how are you doing”. “Howdy, ya’ll from around here.” It doesn't get any better than that for inquiring in a non-threatening manner.

Ain’t - Although this word is used all over the US it is particularly prevalent in the South. However, this isn’t proper English.

Ya’ll - short for “you all” or “all of you”. Its use is appropriate when addressing more than one person, but southerners use it all the time. Let’s face it, this is a great word. It rolls off the tongue and immediately identifies the speaker as a southerner, or a user of southern vocabulary.

Reckon - to regard or think of.

Yonder - over there.

Young'uns - children. 'uns can be added as a suffix to many adjectives such as “big’uns”. It means “ones”.

Towhead - small blond child.

Smack dab - directly.

Mess - a lot. (We caught a mess of fish.)

Bread basket - stomach.

Hunkey Dorey - great!

Tarnation - used to indicate surprise.

Red-bugs - chiggers.

Fixin’ to - getting ready to.

Hissy fit - temper tantrum.

hankering-desire

I'll swanny-I'm surprised

Sumb!tch

'mater or 'tater-tomato or potato as in "want sum 'maters fer supper?"

ignernt-ignorant

Sugar-endearment as in , sugar, come here*

Catty wampus-crooked, not level.

Colloquialisms
Full as a tick- He was full as a tick after eating that meal.

Crooked as a dog's hind leg (self explanatory)

Like a milk bucket under a bull-useless

Gully Washer-lots of rain

Fit to be tied-aggravated

Scarce as a hen's teeth (ever look in a hen's mouth?)

Make hay while the sun shines (self-explanatory)

lord willin and the creek dont rise (self-explanatory)

fiddle fartin around-wasting time

Get off your high horse-quit being so snotty.

She/he's gettin' to big for her/his britches-kid acting up

Bless your little peapicking heart-usually used to thank someone when they've gone out of their way to do something for someone.

Funny stuff kids.

It's not fair. Western New Yorkers sound like Weather Channel personalities and y'all have hit every oddball thing I know of.

New York State has some different accents but only the City seems fun to me. Parts of Buffalo can sound a bit like Brooklyn now and then but not like it used to.

Charlie

LMAO

Thanks Barry

Mosaicwench wrote on May 22^nd, 2008 at 8:44am:


"gone beyond the black stump" means going further out into the bush than you normally would or descriptive of a place that is a long way away from where you currently are.

Cooey has a couple of uses; one is as you have said & is like saying G’day Mate.
The main use for Cooey is when searching for others in the bush, its one of the very few sounds that can be made by the human voice that can travel significant distances in the bush & is called out with this sounding, Cooooooo ey.
It was commonly used when searching for people lost in the bush.

Cheers
Barry

Paul98 wrote on May 22^nd, 2008 at 8:31am:

Paul
I'm starting to think you may have a bit of Aussie blood in you, you got both Wombat explainations spot on.

Cheers
Barry

I'm confused...I'm still struggling with the different Spanish dialects.  That's all I have to say about that.

Langa

deltadarlin wrote on May 22^nd, 2008 at 7:54pm:

Finally.....someone on here I can understand.  ;

B

There is ONE universal word that is used most often in most states and countries -- HUH?

It's meaning is very clear -- What the hell do you mean?

this thread is great and hillarious. It's so interesting - some of the things we use in everyday speaking and the meanings behind them. I had a neighbor from South LA -- she "swiped" the floor while I "mopped" it.

We had a meet and greet in FL and had attendants from Boston, NC, Texas, GA, Indiana and FL. There was a lot of "HUH's" (especially when Nancy C. was talking  ) going on that weekend.

Hugs BD