Mr. Write's Page

I, Rocky Smith, am a bona fide Georgian. I was born here. My relatives over many generations are from Georgia. I’ve lived here for the last 30-odd years.

But I didn’t spend my formative years here. I was raised a military brat, and we moved regularly to wherever the Air Force transferred my Dad. By the time I went away to college, I had lived for extended periods in

Washington, D.C.
Tokyo, Japan
Panama City, Florida
A quaint little village in France you never heard of, and
Stuttgart, Germany.

Because there isn’t much South on that list, I never acquired the signature attribute one normally expects of a native Georgian: a Southern accent.

Oh, I can turn on the vernacular when I feel the need. Sometimes, in the presence of, say, the plumber, or while chatting with the ladies at the Post Office, I can drawl as well as anyone. I can toss out colorful colloquialisms with ease. I say “y’all” with frequency and relish.

But that’s the folksy me, not the natural me. My normal speech is, pretty much, generic American.

Probably because of my background, I’ve always had a special appreciation for Southern accents and colorful Southern expressions.

For me, it started after the Smiths returned to the U.S. from Germany, and I went off to the University of Georgia, and my family settled in a small town where they were the only residents who didn’t talk Southern. Being plunged suddenly into that environment was fascinating and greatly entertaining.

The fact is, many Southernisms are well known and commonly used. Everyone understands “y’all” as a contraction of “you all” (always used in the plural sense, in effect meaning “you and yours,” never referring to an individual, regardless of what some of y’all are led to believe).

Furthermore, Southerners use many expressions that are not exclusive to the South — “I reckon,” “I hear tell,” “I aim to,” and “I’m fixin’ to,” for example.

People down South also may “bark up the wrong tree,” “go off half-cocked,” or “holler like a stuck pig.” Such terms are not strictly Southern, either, and really, are too common to be much fun.

To me, the most enjoyable Southernisms are the gems that I’ve heard friends and relatives use in everyday speech.

Many came from the old days, in Dad’s hometown of Savannah and in my family’s adopted home, Suwanee, Georgia. Here are a few of my favorite examples…

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One weekend during college, when I went home to Suwanee for a family visit, my grandfather Frank stopped to see us late on a Saturday morning. Mom asked if he would like to join us for lunch. Frank replied, “Naw, I done eat.”

What a delightfully simple and innovative grammatical construction. I believe it employs some non-standard variation of the past perfect tense.

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On another occasion in Suwanee, I happened to meet our neighbor Ralph Kennedy at the One-Stop, and he told me about a police call the night before.

Ralph explained that “two poe-lease” had stopped a drunk driver, and the driver bolted and ran into the woods. Subsequently, said Ralph, “one of them poe-lease” chased the man down and apprehended him.

In local usage, the word “poe-lease” (emphasis on the first syllable) could describe a single police officer, multiple officers, a police vehicle, a police station, or the police department as an entity. Simple and elegant.

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As you may know, people in the South don’t drink “soda,” “pop,” “soda pop,” or “soft drinks.” Those terms are not in the Southern lexicon. Around here — and this has been true all my life — such a beverage is a “Coke.”

“Coke” is a generic Southern term that refers to any carbonated, non-alcoholic beverage of any brand — Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, or whatever. (Similarly, a tissue to many Southerners is a “Kleenex.” A refrigerator is a “Frigidaire,” or possibly an “icebox.”)

Almost as common as “Coke” is the term “Co-Cola,” which is a lazy contraction of “Coca-Cola.”

In practice, if you order a “Coke” or “Co-Cola,” you are likely to be served an actual Coca-Cola brand beverage. Which is usually okay, because Southerners tend to prefer the Real Thing anyway.

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Most of us have favorite expressions. Me, I have an unbreakable habit of describing things as “interesting.” Nothing Southern about that.

My dad often used the idiom of being “in high cotton” to describe a fortuitous turn of events. He also found the saying, “tight as Dick’s hatband” quite humorous.

At a family dinner, when my Savannah grandmother held out her plate for a second helping, she would ask for “Just a touch.” Further, she often ended sentences with, “don’t you know.” As in, “Savannah is so very hot in the summer, don’t you know.”

My Suwanee grandmother Leila had two favorite expressions she used regularly. One was the comment, “Lord help.” which is an all-purpose observation suitable for virtually any situation. Some examples of her use of the term are in this post.

The other saying Leila used often was “Well, I Suwannee,” or sometimes, “I Swan.” The meaning is obvious, but the origin of the term is unclear. Maybe it has some connection to the Suwannee River in Florida. Not much chance it refers to the tiny Georgia town of Suwanee.

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Many of my Southern friends and relatives make liberal use of the expression, “used to could.” Example: “My granny, rest her soul, made the best fried chicken ever. I used to could eat a platter full and ask for more.”

In these parts, folks do not “press” or “push” a doorbell or a TV remote control. They “mash” it. And, for the record, the remote control is a “clicker.” Example: “Hon, this show is awful. For Heaven sakes, mash the clicker.”

Where I came from, you would not “throw” or “toss” a ball or other object. You would “chuck” it.

Southerner do not observe people sitting “on the floor.” They observe people sitting “in the floor.”

You don’t get in your car and “go to town.” You get in your car and “run to town.”

You don’t “drive” your mama to church in the car. You “carry” your mama to church in the car.

If you have a service job, you do not “serve” or “assist” the customers. You “wait on” the customers.

And as for that lazy, deceitful, unethical cousin of yours, he is probably described around town as “shiftless,” “sorry,” and “no-account.”

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I end with a wonderful Southern expression that I heard a long time ago, and from only one person.

In the early 1990s, after I found myself divorced, I lived in Suwanee for a couple of years in a house I rented from my grandmother Leila. The place was getting old, and, no surprise, one day the refrigerator died.

Before long, my dad appeared at the door with two brothers, John Henry Haney and Jessie Lee Haney, who did appliance repair work around Suwanee. The Haney boys were friendly, cordial, proper Southern gentlemen in their 50s, maybe 60s. They could fix anything.

John Henry, the older brother, habitually used an expression that I still find myself using today.

Dad observed that the refrigerator was old, and it did well to operate as long as it had. John Henry replied, “Wull, thass what I SAY! Them things wuz built to last.”

Dad then remarked that the house was pretty old, too, and he expected many more such repairs in the future. John Henry replied, “Wull, thass what I SAY! Things is bound to wear out.”

In recent years, I have dropped “Wull, thass what I SAY!” into many conversations, just because I find the expression delightful and amusing.

Nobody ever gets the joke but me.