Monday, January 16, 2012

Southun Idioms and Some Such

There are a lot of Suthun idioms and phrases that make life in the South colorful if nothing else.  One of my personal favorites is 'getting yer picher made.'  This is what folks say when they stand in front of a camera and have someone trip the shutter.  Where the rest of the country says "I'm going to have a photo taken." the suthunah says "Ahm gonna git muh picher made."  The photo above attests to this, (like you may be thinking I make these things up) and this photo I took myself just a couple of weeks ago.

Idioms and phrases which identify an area of a group of people fascinate me.  (Hey, I'm easily entertained.)  Some even are restricted to a such a small group that it may only be two or three people.  Sometime ago I heard a story about a couple who could bring about the end to arguments when one of them said simply "I can see the mailbox."  (I hear you..."Huh?")  It seems that this couple had a story in their past in which one of them drove into a mailbox while the other one gave directions with the phrase "I can see the mailbox."  They use this now to tell the other "I can see something which you cannot." and this gives them a handle on such things which fuel arguments. Point of view.   I think a lot of families and couples have similar things.

My wife and I have our own.  "Sharp Metal!"  (yeah, "Huh?") Allow me to explain.  Not too long ago we got rid of our above ground swimming pool.  The liner had stopped holding water and we made the executive decision to take it down. The WE turned into just me and there I was carefully pulling all the parts out of the pool, disconnecting hundreds of connectors, screws, bolts and what not.  Soon it was just a 75 foot piece of metal pool wall and me. 
Metal Pool Wall after many hours of hard work. 
I carefully put on my heavy leather gloves and told my wife to stand back while I attempted to roll the wall up.  I also pointed out to her the spot where the pool filter had been taken out.  "Careful," I pointed out, "Sharp Metal there."  I went about working on laying out the wall so that I could roll it up.  It took me more than an hour or two to pull, jerk and yank this thing into a long line so that it would be workable. (That S*&^t is HEAVY!)  At one point I took off my gloves and took a drink.  Forgetting to put on the glove, I reached out and - yeah - cut myself on that very same small section of 'Sharp metal.'

Now, we use it to identify those things which are obviously going to come back to haunt us.  Watching TV we will see some clue that the director wants us to see. The clue on which the cops will catch the bad guy.  That's when one of us will say "Sharp Metal."   That says "I caught that reference and I bet it's going to come up later."  My scar from where I cut myself throbs ever so lightly.

I'd love to hear some of your own phrases and idioms.  Especially if they are Suthun in nature. 

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