Emily Wolfe

Grammar: Part 1

Some 9+ years ago I was in the midst of preparing college applications and selecting the colleges to which I would apply. I spent countless hours pouring over my copy of The Princeton Review’s The Best 311 Colleges (it is now The  Best 368 Colleges) trying to determine where I was best suited to spend the next 4 years of my life. I had a dozen schools, give or take a few, that were contenders.  University of Boston and Loyola Marymount were high on the list… proximity to a desirable city was my main prerequisite. I was not about to pack up and move to a rural campus where I believed weekend activities consisted solely of keg parties and cow-tipping expeditions. After-all one can only tip so many cows before it becomes old news.

No – a big city was a must.

Atlanta, and the entire South, were not on my list of acceptable locales. Sure it was a big city, but it was in the South and everybody knows that the South is backwards and culture-less and stupid.

And the accents! How could southerners stand to listen to themselves speak?! What an offense to my grammar-snob, 750 SAT Verbal scoring ears!

Due to a serendipitous turn of events Atlanta is precisely where I would end up. I moved south excited but hesitant and very concerned that I would end up with one of those dreadful southern accents. I used to tell people who inquired about my college plans that I would drop out of college and move home when the first hint of a southern accent snuck into my speech.

10 years later I look back and laugh.

I love southern accents accents and all of their trappings. Sure there is occassionally an accent so thick and accompanied by a speaker I find so offensive that I occasionally find myself turned off by it. Most of the time, though, I love them and I love the uniquely southern words and sayings. I can appreciate that sometimes you just can’t do a sentiment/emotion justice without making up or misusing a word. I can also appreciate that no other “dialect” allows you to call some one out for being offensive/mean/straight out ass-holish while still sounding calm, cool, collected and best of all, sweet.

Anyway, with the increasing homogenization of society, and language, I figured this blog is the perfect place to dispense a little wisdom in the form of southern grammar (and my favorite southern adages).

A
Ain’t – contraction of am not

Ain’t got but – have only, as in “I ain’t got but a dime”

All tore up about it – very emotionally upset, extremely disturbed

Ass-busters – slippers; because a good southern floor is highly polished

B
Bad as I hate to do it – As much as I hate to do it

Bless Patsy – pleasant expletive expressing surprise

Bless your heart – f*** you, the speaker may add an adjective for extra emphasis, “Bless your little heart!”

Busy as a one-armed paper hanger – very busy

C
Can see to can’t see - dawn to dusk

Cotton pickin – loathesome, wretched

Country mile – a long distance

More favorites to come!