13 Words That Give Away Your Southern Roots
We asked the Bourbon & Boots brand followers to send us a list of unique “Southernisms” we could share with our audience. We culled out the typical Y’all’s, Sweet Tea’s, and Bless Your Hearts and selected some off-the-beaten path expressions used exclusively by Southern patriots.
1. Lagniappe: a little bit of something extra (especially for those from N’Awlins and the Gulf area)
2. Pocketbook: girls from the deep South are known to call it this instead of a purse.
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3. Po’Boy: a long sandwich, usually served with fried oysters, shrimp or fish. But in NOLA, your po’boy could even have plain deli meat. Po’Boys are really defined by their good, long crusty French bread.
4. Sweeper: as in run the sweeper referring to the vacuum cleaner.
5. “Oh Honey” : the proper way to start most any sentence.
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6. Fixin’ to: used to let your compatriot know what’s up. As in “I’m fixin’ to make me a drink”
7. Buggy: it’s not a shopping cart, it’s a buggy
8. Might Could: a polite way of considering a request while considering all the work required.
9. “Dumber than a box of rocks”: a kind way to describe someone a few bricks short of a full load.
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10. Caddywompus: a more fun way to say sideways
11. Access Road & Main Roads: There are only two kinds of roads, the access road and the main road. If the D.O.T. is working on the highway, there’s only one road to get back on your route again and it’s via an “access road” not a “service road”. And by the way, if you live in the South, that construction is going to take five years just to pave two lanes. Especially if it’s I-75 in Georgia or Florida. Same thing for I-85 in the Carolinas. Because of this tragic lack of getting the roads fixed, Southerners do not call our interstates “freeways” but “highways”. There’s nothing free about our highways (see GA-400).
12. Clicker: you need to change the channel and want me to pass you what? A remote control? Honey, that thing is called a clicker. There’s no controlling the remote in a Southern house.
13. Ketchup or Catsup?: The H.J. Heinz Company started producing the tomato sauce in 1876 and originally called it catsup, mimicking the name of a 17th century Chinese sauce. The company switched the name to Ketchup to differentiate from the Chinese sauce and Ketchup caught on as the primary name of the tomato sauce in North America. However, there are still pockets of area in the deep south that still call it Catsup.
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14. Can someone reach up and “cut off the light”. A phrase used to turn off the light switch in the room.
15. I need someone to “carry me down to the store”. This person isn’t asking for a someone to physically pick them up and take them to the Piggly Wiggley or A&P. Rather they are asking for a car ride to the store and back.
Shopping Bourbon & Boots Online Gift Store:
Our Southern Lifestyle Brand is your online gift store for made in the south personalized gifts, gift ideas for men, and gift ideas for women. Our southern gifts inventory of unique gifts and unusual gifts ensure a rare & unique selection of personal gifts sure to delight you and your recipient. Visit our Southern Gifts store at www.bourbonandboots.com
