Southern Slang

What, no Southerners? Well, allow me to present some good ole’ Southern North Carolina colloquialisms.

1- Bless your heart / Ain’t you precious - The polite southern way of saying you try real hard, but you just aren’t the brightest bulb in the box. Or in some cases, you’re just dumb.

2- Britches - Pants

3- Clod-hoppers - Big, clunky, over-sized shoes

4- Colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra in the middle of January - It’s hell-a cold outside.

5- Slower than mollasses running uphill on a cold day - If you got any slower we’d need to check your pulse to make sure you’re still alive.

6- Fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down (aka - hit with an ugly stick) - You’re just not very attractive

7- lick - A measurement, as in “I was so tired that I didn’t get a lick of work done today”

Or as in an ass-whooping - “My dad gave me a good lickin when I got suspended from school.”

8- poop or get off the pot - Make a choice or get out of the way.

9- Skedaddle - Depart in a hurry.

10- To’ up from the flo’ up - Again, another off-hand way of saying you’re not so pretty. Seems the south has a lot of ways to tell you that you’re ugly.

11- Figure - An unexpected outcome... “He hadn’t figured he’d win the pig wrestling contest at the fair.”

12- Fixin - Getting ready to do something “I was fixin to get ready to go.” Translated literally to, “I was getting ready to get ready to go.”

13- Goober - Double meanings - meaning #1- A peanut. Meaning #2 - A peanut-head/pea-brained/lacking common sense - “I saw that goober tryin to fish in his swimming pool.”

14- Hankering - A strong desire to do or have something. “I got a hankering for a tomato and mayo sandwhich.”

15- Like to - No, it doesn’t mean you’d like to meet Kim Khardasian (bleah). Like to translates to, “I like to have crapped my pants when I saw that bear in the woods.”

16- Purdy - Pretty, as in “You sure do got a purdy mouth” (quote from the movie Deliverance)

17- The South (aka The Southern States) - The states of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North & South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Sorry, Florida, no offense, but where I’m from Florida is a state that happens to be in the south where rich yanks go to retire.

18- Yanks - Anyone originally from north of Kentucky and West Virginia, to include parts west to Ohio and Michigan.

19- Reckon - To make an assumption. “Well, I reckon I’ve written enough of these now.”

20- Piddlin - To waste time. “Stop piddlin around reading this and go to work already.”