Allow me to learn you

When you are raised in the South you know that there are preconceived notions about you. I am here to tell you that, although many of those are based on fact, there is a difference between a redneck and a southern belle/gentleman.

The rednecks are the ones you automatically think of when you see a map of Alabama or Mississippi. They are usually the first to be interviewed when the news broadcasts a story & will most likely be wearing a “wife beater” (we’ll get to that in a minute) or driving a truck that has what looks to be male genitalia hanging from a trailer hitch. This is the type of person from the South that make the rest of us look bad. They have mullets, missing teeth, horrible grammar & are just overall the stereotype.

Then you have your southern belles and gentleman. These are the people proud to be from the South but not above being educated on other places & things. They have manners, are nice to their mamas, wave at their neighbors & will “pray for you” if they hear you are having a bad time.

I like to think of myself as falling into this second group. 🙂

I love being from the South. I don’t mind that people call me Reba & I use ya’ll daily. I was raised to respect my elders, say yes ma’am and no ma’am, be gracious to strangers and always lend a helping hand. I love football, country music & lightnin bugs. However, I do know some people don’t quite understand us down here so I thought I’d give you a little lesson.

* Learn you – personally I don’t use this one but my daddy does. It means to teach you something.

* Deddy – speaking of my daddy, in the South you might just hear this pronounced deddy

* Well, bless your heart – don’t be fooled by this one. We don’t literally mean bless your heart. This is more the polite way of saying “wow, you poor dumba$$”

* Fixin to – this means you are about to do something.

* wife beater – (thought I forgot didn’t you?) this refers to a plain white tank top. How this came to be known as this is anybody’s guess.

* G’s – none of our words end in G. I don’t know why but most of us leave off the G at the end of words. For instance: sayin, walkin, talkin, runnin, ridin… you get the idea

* Tea – here all tea is sweet so only those not from here feel the need to say “sweet” tea

* Buggy – otherwise known as a shopping cart

* Dumb as a box of rocks or IQ of a Lima Bean – our way of saying someone’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor. (like what I did there right?)

* The bigger the bow, the better the mama – here in the South, we believe in big bows. You won’t see many girls on school picture day without 1/2 her head covered by a hair bow & if you do you automatically assume her deddy dressed her.

 

I know there are many, many more but I am fixin to go do some sewing so that is all for now. Feel free to reply below with some of your favorites.