Before we get to our favorite words only Southerners say, let’s hear it from the famous belles of “Sh%t Southern Women Say” on The Southern Women Channel.
Down here, there is no Pepsi. Everything is Coke. Even Pepsi is called Coke. True Southerners don’t like going North because up there, if you ask for Coke, all y’all get is freaking Pepsi.
In Northern states, iced tea is served with a box of sugar packets because Yankees are too lazy to actually blend sugar into the hot liquid to make sweet tea. Damn Yankees.
Life below the Mason Dixon line is so sweet, just like our tea and Coca-Cola. Southern accents over time have developed their own vocabulary. These words tend to come out with even more zest if the Southerner has been drinking bourbon.
Here’s a sampling of words only Southerners say
Y’all: it’s never “you guys” but “y’all”. We’ll know you’re a Yankee, or that your parents were Yankees, if you say “you guys”.
Fixin’ to: used to let your compatriot know what’s up. As in “I’m fixin’ to make me a drink”
Lagniappe: a little bit of something extra (especially for those form N’Awlins and the Gulf area)
Pocketbook: girls from the deep South’s middle-o’-nowhere areas are known to call it this instead of a purse.
Mash: Southerners don’t push things, we mash ’em.
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 bread.
Buggy: it’s not a shopping cart, but a buggy
Might Could: a polite way of presenting your options
Caddywompus a.k.a. caddywonked: a more fun way to say sideways
Access Road a.k.a. Main Road: screw the term “service 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” or “main 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).
Sweeper: as in run the sweeper referring to the vacuum
Made: whether you’re referring to a test you aced, a photo you took, or a baby you birthed, “made” is the verb
Changer or Clicker: you want me to pass you what? A remote control? Honey, that thing is called the changer or the clicker. There’s no controlling the remote in a Southern house. That darn thing will cause World War III, ‘specially in SEC football season.
Yankee: anyone from the North. Even if you’re from Washington D.C., you’re a borderline Yankee. But stay here long enough, plant some roots, and you’ll grow up to become a Southerner.
“Bless Your Heart”: if you’ve heard this, especially from a Southern woman, she doesn’t mean it. It’s her nice way of telling you to put on your grown up pants and deal with it. As said by one of our New York friends “I could shout a parade of Yankee-style expletives in your face and it wouldn’t be nearly as bitchy as bless your heart.”
What are some of your favorite words only Southerners say? Y’all can comment below.
