THINGS I LERNT LIVIN' IN THE SOUTH

i tell you what! i love the sayings and phrases around these parts. i love the country accents, the food like lemon catfish with hush puppies and the church-going, God-fearin' lifestyle. never, in all my girlhood dreamings and fantasies of married life, did i envision myself here in tennessee. but i truly love it. and it's good for jokes, too. because tennessee and the tennesseans that live here crack me up constantly.

where else would you hear a fellow young woman leader say, "halleluJER!"? i can barely stand to write it, it's so hilarious.

where else could you go and have farm fresh eggs sold to you by one of your young women? and have her call the money she earns "egg money"? i thought that only existed in Little House on the Prairie.

where else could you go and have a visiting teaching lunch date that centered around horses and their varying personalities and food preferences? i tell you what, i learned a lot about the difference between hay and straw that day.

my parents recently forwarded me an email titled, "Things I Lernt Livin' in the South." now, i don't usually read forwards. they usually get sent to the deleted folder faster than you can say, "darn tootin'." but this one i curiously read with an "oh geez what" kinda attitude. and i'm glad i did, because it made me realize the funny things i hear around town. here is a sampling:

Things I Lernt Livin' in the South:

• It is not a shopping cart, it is a BUGGY! --totally true and especially funny when you hear mothers yelling at their kids to, "mind the buggy now.".
• If it grows, it'll stick ya. If it crawls, it'll bite cha. --hoping this doesn't happen anytime soon.
• Onced and Twiced are words.
• Fixinto is one word. It means, "I'm going to do that." -- example I hear: "I'm fixinto go to the store." love it.
• Iced Tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinkin' it when you're two. --so true. though here, it's all about Sweet Tea. one day i was shopping in Wal-Mart (classy right?) and a group of college guys were all discussing the menu for a party they were having that night: "....ok, we got chicken, we got salad, we got beans...did somebody get the Sweet Tea?"  "yep, right here." i don't know about you, but hearing these college guys worry about whether or not they got enough Sweet Tea was just hilarious. gotta have that Sweet Tea, and you better believe it is found in every restaurant, fast food joint, party and mechanic shop lobby around town. the only place it isn't found is among us mormons! :) we tend to stick to root beer which no restaurant carries.
• Y'all is singular and All Y'all is plural.
• Fried catfish is the other white meat. --tasty. not scary.

and some that we've personally heard around town:

•  It's not pronounced mirror. It's pronounced mirra. --that cute charlotte again.
• That don't mean a hill o' beans. --scott's boss said that to him.
• Well, he's a big 'un. --brother butler at church referring to jake.
• Can I have the fa-Gi-tas?" --mexican food names are downright impossible to say here.
• and......I tell you what. --this proceeds every declaration, opinion, story, etc. you name it.

again, never in my wildest dreams did i imagine cookeville, tennessee as my place of address. but we enjoy it.
and i tell you what...