Southern Country Sayings
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I just love all of our Southern country sayings and talking about them never seems to get old. A few times now I’ve asked people to tell me their favorites on our Facebook page and it always lights up with hundreds of contributions. It tickles everyone to talk about them and see what old Southern sayings others have to contribute as we all walk down memory lane.
So today I want to start that conversation on this post as a fun way of celebrating our favorite Southern sayings and learning a few new ones we might want to work into our vocabulary. So grab a sweet tea and settle in, y’all.
Favorite Southern Country Sayings
Butter my biscuit
“Butter my biscuit” is an iconic Southern phrase. Although we generally use it to impart surprise, you can get a lot of mileage out of it for other purposes as well.
Over yonder
When giving directions Southern-style, you’d say “over yonder”, meaning over there… somewhere.
Gone off your rocker
Someone who is crazy can be said to have gone off their rocker or possibly have gone around the bend. There’s no telling what they’re fixin’ to do. You might need to call the law on them if they get too rowdy. Don’t be afraid to give the station boys a ring, even if the miscreant is only knee-high to a grasshopper.
There are plenty of Southern folks who think they’re tough and lots of Northern types that say some mighty hurtful things about their countrymen. The best advice the South has for either one tends to be that if you’re going to be stupid, you’d better be tough as well.
Skint
People don’t go broke much in the South, they get skint instead. Most likely someone convinces them to do something for a Yankee dime. That’s also a kiss, just by the by, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. I also like, “He’s tighter than Dick’s hatband” for stingy people.
Y’all
You can’t very well do a piece about common Southern phrases without mentioning what has become, arguably, the most iconic piece of Bible Belt parlance: y’all. In the same way, many other contractions and accents have become part and parcel of the way the South speaks. If that ain’t true, then grits ain’t groceries and eggs ain’t poultry.
Fixin’ To
Another popular Southern expression is fixin’ to. If you’re fixin’ to do something, it means you’re getting ready and preparing to do it. Like I’m fixin’ to make some grits, y’all.
Automotive country sayings
Ain’t nothing more Southern than a good old stick-shift pickup, so I think that I’ll give you a few automotive selections before anything else.
- For instance, that thing you push to get the gas going is a foot feed.
- The dimwit that just passed you illegally is riding a hawg or Harley, not a motorcycle.
- If you got behind a slow driver, “That man must be haulin’ eggs.”
You may have seen people doing some foolish things on Southern country roads. That’s fine, they can stick their arm out the car window as long as they don’t cry when it gets knocked off. If they do, then to heck with them and the horse they rode in on.
Agricultural country sayings
It takes someone dumb as the turnip truck they fell off of not to know that Southerners are farmers by breeding, training, and choice. That means that you’re going to see a ton of agricultural terms thrown around in Southern slang. Someone might be stubborn as a mule, working like a horse, or plain old dog-tired after a long day.
If you need to work out a deal, it might be time to squat down on the horse blankets and hammer out all the bits that are finer than a frog’s hair. If you’ve got an idea of how to do something, you’ll probably have a bee in your bonnet about it. A little birdie might tell you something you would otherwise not know. If you’re doing something you’re good at, you’re either holding back or going hog wild.
“That girl is too scared to say boo to a goose.” Meaning she is just a scaredy cat. At least I think that is what it means. From my experiences with geese, they are “meaner than snake piss!” Speaking of geese: “You ain’t got the good sense God gave a goose.” Southern speak for calling someone dumb or stupid, sorry folks!
Another commenter mentioned, “I wouldn’t vote for him for dog catcher”. This meant it didn’t matter which office the candidate was vying for, he wasn’t worthy of being elected. If you got a job done quickly: “I got that job done before a cat could lick his hind end.”
Speaking of farming, you’ll need some soil to plow and real Southern parlance knows just where to come by it. It’s not uncommon to hear that if dumb were dirt, a particularly dull individual would be an acre or two. Feel free to adjust the field size to suit the individual in question. Some people need more than just an acre to really get your point.
I also can’t forget my favorite I use too often on Southern Plate: “Whatever cranks yer tractor.”
Bible Belt
Not for nothing is the South called the Bible Belt. Hang out there long enough and you are almost certain to hear a fair amount of religious terminology.
- I want to start by saying yes, bless your heart can be a good thing. In fact, I’ve heard it used more often than not in situations where it really is a good thing. If someone is going through a rough time or suffering a loss, you’d hug them and say, “bless your heart” as a show of compassion.
- Another catch-all phrase you are likely to hear before too long in the South is “Lord have mercy” in any of many different enunciations. It’s a hugely versatile term that can mean nearly anything if you give it the right inflection.
- “On God” to indicate commitment.
- “I’ll be there tomorrow if the Good Lord’s willing and the crick (creek) don’t rise” to limit that commitment. Meaning sometimes there weren’t bridges over creeks. If there had been heavy rain, the creek would cover the road and made it impassable.
- “From your mouth to God’s ears” to say you hope you will be able to fulfill that commitment nonetheless.
Angry country phrases
When people get angry, some of them throw a “hissy fit” or will be “madder than a wet hen.” Because y’all, when a hen is wet, it’s mad. Others will simply mutter “fiddlesticks” and move on. If you’ve really offended someone, chances are they’re fit to be tied. If so, just telling them not to get their britches in a wad is probably not going to cut it.
Foodie Southern sayings
Of course, we wouldn’t be doing justice to the American South if we didn’t mention its unique cuisine. The Southern kitchen is so important to its culture that some things have made their way from the kitchen range into normal conversations. If someone is starving to death in the dining room, you might want to brew them up something hot or give them a little something to tide them over.
If it’s hot out, don’t forget to offer them some coke. That’s any fizzy drink, not just the brand-name Coca-Cola. If you’re out in the fridge, remember to check in your cellar before heading off to buy more.
Family country sayings
Family is important in the Deep South too. As they say, Southern blood runs deep. You’ll be hard put to find even a single Southerner who can’t recall their grandparents asking for “some sugar.” That’s a kiss, for you Northern folks. There’s plenty of effort that goes into making sure that kids get brought up right.
FAQs
What is the most southern saying?
I think we can all agree that the most Southern slang is y’all.
What is a Southern greeting?
An old-fashioned Southern greeting some folks still use today is howdy.
What is Southern slang for tired?
A Southern way of saying I’m exhausted is “plum tuckered.”
That’s just a small selection of all the great Southern expressions that you guys have poured into this page. If y’all think I missed something, feel free to put your favorite country sayings in the comments section. If you see a term there that no one seems to understand, please, share your Southern pride and define it for us. Catch you later, hun. Bye now!
“You think I don’t have culture just because I’m from down in Georgia. Believe me, we’ve got culture there. We’ve always had sushi. We just called it bait.”
~Ben “Cooter” Jones
I’m from North Alabama, but I moved to New York and married a man with two children. When I first moved here, my husband took great joy in torturing me about saying, “I’m fixing dinner.” He always go and tell the kids, “Guys, I don’t know when we’re eating. Apparently, dinner broke, and Amber’s trying to fix it.”
He didn’t understand what I meant when I’d say, “If the kids make a huge mess in there again, I’m gonna pitch a fit.” And he had no clue what I meant when I’d say, “You’re a mess.”
The Southernism that caused the most confusion though…was “tennis shoes.” I’d tell the kids to go put on their tennis shoes to get ready for school, and they’d give me blanks stares. My husband would remind me, “They don’t play tennis, and we call those ‘sneakers’.” I finally stopped saying “tennis shoes” to the children (though I still say it about my own), but now my husband tells me my step-daughter has picked it up. He called me the other day to tell me that she pitched a fit because she couldn’t find her tennis shoes! The South is rubbing off on my Yankee stepchildren. 🙂
Hi Amber,
When we moved to Oregon from sunny California when I was six years old, way back in 1963…I had a heck of time and I wasn’t even from the deep South!
People would look at me with lips puckered and a side tilt to the head when I referred to what they call here in Oregon “flip flops” as to the Southern Cal term as “beach walkers”.
While my brother and I walked up the little dirt road pulling the old red wagon with “Oregon pop” bottles, we were happy to report to the store owner that we had a bunch of “Soda bottles” to trade in at his “Liqour Store”!.
He would say that of course he didn’t sell any liquor there, and my mom couldn’t get her cigarettes either by sending a note with her permission along with her kids as she could to the liquor stores in California. There was never a corner store, you were sent to the Liquor Store.
What my younger brother and I referred to as the local waterfall, was actually the run off that had been formed by the cow pastures irrigation pipes and we were actually sitting under the irrigation pipe showering us with manure water that had splashed over hundreds and thousands of cow patties & drained downhill!
And leave it to a couple of kids that had been banished to the backyard to start digging around and find a garden that had been forgotten, then yelling with glee that “We’re rich, We’re rich” when we found some withered carrots and baby potatoes and doing a dance of joy!
You can all rest assured, we were a very middle class family that had more than enough food, drink and clothes…my dad was in construction. But, being that we were new to that area, I’m sure the neighbors might have had pause to worry about two very tan, tow headed Southern Cal kids covered in dirt, screaming to the bright blue skies that we had found something that was actually in the earth growing!
My mom was also quite confused over this claim to riches since our family had a big beautiful yard with orange, lemon, grapefruit, cherry and nectarine trees, that we picked and ate while we played in the yard.
We were a family of four kids to two young parents who also braved the move to a State without one relative to ever turn to.
They also bought their fair share of animals over a decade of growing kids…a cow, a shetland pony, a big old retired almost blind Palomino mare, a rogue looking blazed face sour puss horse for my younger sister, a wild yearling Pinto stallion for my 4-H training, a pregnant roping mare that gave me a beautiful little filly. Rabbits, 25 chickens, 1 Weimaraner, 1 Basset Hound, 1 Black Lab, 2 kittens, that had to be sold when we sold our ten acres of land when a new job sent us North.
But, the tides turned once we got settled, which brought pets that became small dogs once we had to move into the big city of Salem, Or.
Once there, the only shocking events was that younger brothers and I were sent out to the fields to pick strawberries, beans, cherries, anything for my mom to get us out of the house so she could have some peace and quiet from the fighting young teens in her house.
Then I became the Jr. High hormone filled sour puss, hating the thought that I was shipped off to work in the fields like a slave from the Civil War era.
And you can be sure, I didn’t have any smiles for the vast amount of new friends and neighbors my parents made who told them the norm in Salem was for all the kids 5th gr. and up was to go out and pick crops to earn school clothes money over the entire summer.
I won’t bore you with any more details, but.;..I will let you know it was a bad day every night at supper when it was time to get home and confess that I had only picked half of what my younger brother picked; then to hear my dad say the same thing every time, “Dammit, your not even making enough to cover the cost of your sack lunch!!”. : )
Smiling a wicked grin here…frozen can of pop to keep cold with aluminum foil wrapped around, sandwich, bag of chips, homemade cookies and usually an apple. Pickles, sweet breads, crackers and cheese, snacks for the ride home on the migrant bus who the kids of summer had replaced.
I would hate to leave a bad taste in your mouth that I turned out to be a real brat once we hit town as a Jr. High girl…I just hated picking and decided to try a new and broadened career change.
I ironed all the uniforms for the couple across the street who drove across country in the Mayflower moving semi and slept the rest of the time once they got home. I got to watch whatever I wanted on their t.v., be in their air conditioned home, & not have to answer to anybody.
I also baby sat for families 5 blocks in every direction. Was a helper to a mom with 4 boys who truly enjoyed my company as I helped her with canning, cleaning and laundry.
I made fabric purses, did stitch details on huck towels and sold them for Christmas gifts to the senior citizen ladies who wished they could still stitch.
So, it kept me out of the rain, and the mud, and I didn’t have to live with the notion I was bumping along in a filthy ol’ migrant bus!
I’m so sorry…I had meant to say when I first started that my mom and her side of the family came from the South East. The way I pronounce “Wash” is pronounced “Were-sh”. I hear a lot of people say that who are in their 70’s. My kids love to tease gramma.
I think another Southern thing is nick names…do you agree with me on that?
My kids for some reason, started calling her Gramma Tootie Fruitie, then it got shortened to just Gramma Tootie. When they would fuss, she would do the hip bounce and sing just the first few phrases of :Tuttie Fruitie…all rooty:. from that 50’s songs . That would make them laugh as toddlers and the name stuck in just their relationship.
Growing up, I was “Sis”, brother was “J.D.”, little sister “Bee Bop”, and I think we called my youngest brother his real name, but added “ie” to the end of it. My mom was called “Snipes” by her dad. And her sister and brother each had a nick name also.
Over this past summer I had a gal from Oklahoma working as my helper. Whenever she would not feel well, she would say this one saying that made me bust out laughing,
She would look at me with sad ol’ eyes, and she would say, “I’m feeling pretty “rough”…” those words just tickled me to death. Don’t worry again, I’m not a mean ol’ gal of 55, she just would have a hang over, or stayed up too late playing cards with her neighbors.
But she could sure cook!
I also wanted to share, that my mom started us girls with her Southern family tradition early in life while we would be setting the table and getting all the beverages ready.
When we would have iced tea, the sugar would already be diluted into the sauce pan while it was hot from boiling. Once the cold water had been added in to the pitcher. we would pour the tea into tall glasses of ice.
Then we would squeeze a nice lemon slice in, then dip our clean fingers in to the top of the iced tea to push the lemon down and somewhat stir the lemon juice down with it.
My mom would always say, it makes it tastes better, and I swear, it did. Our fingers would be scalded by that point from my mom’s near boiling sink of dish soap with a dab of bleach to keep the counters and our hands clean. True..another thing she picked up from her Southern relatives.
Bless her heart
I live in the country and used to dream of having a little restaurant called
“Mom ‘n nems”………..so Southern…..which I’m not but I got here as fast as I could! 🙂
After church we ate at “Mom ‘n nems” ……
“plum” as adjective, used like “very”-plum hot out here
sack not bag
sodie not pop
we have an icebox, not a refrigerator
you’ns as an alternative to ya’ll and younguns(bet you got a few of those)
trash not garbage
There’s a restaurant in Orlando already called that… Mama n Nems! Southern Black family runs it…GREAT Southern food.
One of my favorites from my mother when she did something she”d regret, “If I had three legs I’d kick my own ass” Lol!!!
Cat head biscuits were make entirely by hand. Make a valley in the middle of your flour and lard mixture and put in your buttermilk. Knead, punch down, then grab a hunk about the size of a cat’s head between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze it off. Put in on the pan, pat it down with your the front part of your fingers and put a little bacon grease on top with a spoon. I’ve watched my mom do this many mornings.
“Don’t measure my bushel of corn by your bushel of corn.”
He’s got ants in his pants (fidgety)
S**t or get off the pot [when someone needs to make up their mind or needs to get moving (started)]
she’s butt ugly
After the buffet was loaded down, the table loaded, and the farm table full of desserts, the meal blessed, and Big Mama would say “you see the chance”!
And food would begin to be passed like crazy!!
My mother used to say something was “tighter than Dicks hatband”. Also, “crazier than a bedbug ” and something crooked was ” leanin’ toward Aunt Rachel’s.”