Saying What We Mean

Traveling with friends from the 4 corners of our great land often leads to comments about life in my part of the world. Funny, all the other parts of the country treat us (southerners) like we live in another country. Didn't they fight a war 150 years ago or something like that, ensuring that the South stayed in the Union? But I digress.

These conversations eventually come 'round to things we say. I don't think twice about the sayings I grew up hearing. Some call them 'colorful', I say they just spell out what we are trying to say . . . albeit usually in a colorful way. Here are some that come to mind (and may as well been spoken in Greek and written in Cyrillic to my friends from the rest of the country.)

• 'Forty Going North'  
• 'That Dog won't hunt' 
• 'Nobody'll ever notice it on a galloping horse' 
•  'Two bricks shy of a load', 'Their elevator doesn't go to the top floor.' 'She's not the brightest bulb on the tree'. '2 sandwiches short of a picnic' 
• 'Good thing he had that one at home' 
• 'He ain't got no pot to pea in'
• 'He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn'
• 'She's about as useful as buttons on a dishrag'
• 'That ain't worth the powder to blow it to Hell'
• 'Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit'
• 'Cute as a speckled pup in a red wagon'
• 'Snow ball's chance in Hell'
• 'Argue with a fence post'
• 'A bit light in his loafers'
• 'Got the short end of the stick"
• 'Like a stuck pig'
• 'Bump on a log'
• 'In a coon's age'
• 'Chew'n the fat'
• 'Well, I do declare'
• 'Like white on rice'
• 'He gets a burr in his saddle.'
• 'Got her knickers in a knot.'
• 'Why that egg sucking dog'
• 'Lawd, people will be able to see to Christmas!'
• 'She's as lost as last year's easter egg'
• "I swan, you all musta pissed God off somehow"
• 'We're off like a herd of turtles.'
• 'He hasn't got the sense God gave a goose'
• 'Hotter than blue blazes.'
• Bless your pea pickin' little heart!
• 'Barking up the wrong tree.

But the my favorite is 'Hissy Fit'. Who knew we had the corner on that market? My daddy used to say, 'That lasted about as long as Pat stayed in the Navy'. I never quite figured out where that one came from.

And, that's all she wrote.