Country Grammar.
November 17th, 2006 by Kevin
I just typed an e-mail to some friends and actually used the phrase “might should”. As in, “I might should get back early.”I studied English at a major university for three and a half years. Apparently professors teach all of the important things during the last half of one’s last year. Either that, or all the No-Doz I ate during that time really did rot my brain.
Growing up where I did, I absorbed a fair bit of Sout’-Side-ese, along with a goodish amount of Redneck and a strange blend of Dutch/English thanks to a plethora of redneck relatives and to my grandmother, who spoke Dutch. (*Which, here’s how ignorant I am - I believed up until very recently that this was Ukrainian, not knowing that only my grandfather on that side was Ukrainian. Such a head for languages!)
For your mocking pleasure, here are a few of the phrases I catch myself using quite frequently, sometimes even writing them before I stop and whack myself on the head with a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar.
“Be done had” - Origin: Ghetto
Meaning: have had
Usage: “I be done had this conversation with you five times already!!”
Usually only blasted out during moments of extreme stress. Horribly embarrassing.
“enem” - Origin: Ghetto, Redneck (ghetto and redneck vernacular frequently cross paths)
Meaning: and them
Usage: “I’m going to the store with Amy enem.”
Common. I don’t think I’ve ever heard “and them” around these parts.
“boughten” - Origin: Fucked-up Dutch
Meaning: purchased at a store as opposed to homemade
Usage: “Are these boughten cookies?”
Use this in the wrong setting, and people will look at you like you just spoke Klingon.
“fuckinuh” - Origin: I have no clue
Meaning: same as “uh”
Usage: “Yeah, just order…fuckinuh…pepperoni.”
This probably just indicates that I have sworn so often for so long that even my “uh”s must have attached profanity.
“How you doin’?” - Origin: Ghetto, Redneck, NOT Joey from Friends
Meaning: If you have to ask, get the fuck off my page
Usage: “Heeeeey, How you doin’? How your mama doin’?”
This is the standard greeting of everywhere I have ever lived. It is not said with the dopey fake-Italian accent, but with more of a slight Midwestern drawl. I cannot utter the phrase, “Hello, how are you?” to save my life. This makes me sound oh-so-classy.
“I know that’s right.” - Origin: Ghetto
Meaning: I agree.
Usage: “It’s motherfucking cold.” “I know that’s right.”
I think this originates from gospel churches, in which everyone shouts out and agrees with the preacher. I KNOW that’s right! Right on! Amen!
Coming soon we will explore installment two of why I should never admit I’m an English major. What are your grammatical bastardizations?
Happy Weekend. Y’all.
Beth wrote on 11/17/06 at 10:56 am :
Long time reader - very seldom commentor.
You could not have talked about this at a better time! I was just complaining to some friends that I suddenly find myself saying “cuz” all the time. As in “I am really tired today cuz I stayed out all night>” This irritates the hell out of me. Why is it so freaking difficult to say the correct 2 syllable word! I feel like a 4 year old - heck I would correct a 4 year old who said “cuz”! What gives? What is with the “cuz”?
Jane wrote on 11/17/06 at 10:57 am :
In my house, it is “I know DATS right.” And you forgot my personal favorite, “broughten.”
mme fufu wrote on 11/17/06 at 11:00 am :
hey, my grandfather was ukrainian, too
torchwood wrote on 11/17/06 at 11:36 am :
Ahh, but is the Dutch, actually Dutch, or is it Pennsylvania Dutch? We hear boughten round ur neck uh the woods.
golfwidow wrote on 11/17/06 at 11:39 am :
They all do the fake mobster “howYOUdoon” in my office and I don’t know whether I hate that worse or “giterDUN!” - neither of which belong in an office in Connecticut, as far as I’m concerned.
bill wrote on 11/17/06 at 12:09 pm :
Back when I lived in Texas, people used the word (phrase? contraction.) “y’all” so often that it often got used in posessive form, like: “Kin I use y’all’s bathroom?”
And while we’re at it, what do you think of people who use the word “nucular”?
Carrie wrote on 11/17/06 at 12:09 pm :
But really… is ‘I know that’s right.’ really said that way? Isn’t it more like ‘I know das riegh… ‘ I say fixin’ta or fiddna all the time without thinking.
lisa wrote on 11/17/06 at 12:19 pm :
Heh- I love the “enem.” A friend of mine from Indiana told me once that his favorite application of this phrase used a lot where he’s from is “momenem.” Ha!
I live in Louisville, Kentucky and we have all sorts of fucked up phrases like this that are a result of the midwestern/southern/hillbilly/redneck influences around here. I try to do right by the English language, but it’s hard sometimes!
greenwitch wrote on 11/17/06 at 12:52 pm :
Funny you bring this up. I just recently posted the definition of “farmer” and was sorely disappointed in the “official” meaning of the word (being one and all) SOOOOOOO, I don’t so much have phrases but rather my inflection reeks of what my husband calls “okie”. Please remember when reading this that I have always lived in upstate NY. I do have one pet word that folks tell me makes them think I am from a more northern new england state…. I love to use the word wicked to emphasize how “wicked good” something might be or maybe how wicked cold it is out.
LA wrote on 11/17/06 at 1:09 pm :
I was just thinking about this the other day. I realized there are very few hard consonants in my regular speech except for ‘d’. ‘T’ and ‘th’ are gone. So are prepositions, adverbs and conjunctions. “So, are you going to the store?” sounds like, “Soyougoinuhstore?” When I get riffing I DO sound like Joey. How depressing. ~LA
Melissa wrote on 11/17/06 at 1:33 pm :
I still carry over some of my Montana dialect weirdness, but living in New England has tempered most of them.
I think the biggest one is “come with.” As in “I’m heading to the store. Wanna come with?”
I have picked up “wicked good” since living here. And “fuckwit,” (”Some fuckwit took out the post over there, and now our power’s out.”)
Katie wrote on 11/17/06 at 2:46 pm :
I might have all of you beat. Great up in Pittsburgh, which has its own wierd backwoods coal miner language. I still occasionally ask someone for a gumband at work (rubberband), eat jumbo sammwiches (bologna), watch the birds out my windy, warsh clothes and red up my room (clean up). We add ‘n nat’ (and that) to everything, too. “I’m goin to the store to get cigarettes ‘n nat” or “Let’s go out a get a drink ‘n nat”. Lots of other examples, but you get the picture. It’s rather freaky ‘n nat.
litebrite wrote on 11/17/06 at 2:48 pm :
‘I hear tell’ meaning I heard someone say this or I read this somewhere but I can’t verify that it’s true.
Like- I hear tell that it’s going to rain tomorrow.
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 3:13 pm :
Awesome!~
Mare wrote on 11/17/06 at 3:38 pm :
There are people in Toronto who will insist on saying “I seen”… like, “I seen this Iroc yesterday, and it was mint!” Of course, they also open the light, and when the volume is too low on the TV, they higher it.
warcrygirl wrote on 11/17/06 at 3:59 pm :
It’s not just the fucked up words here, it’s also the accent. In the city I live in no one says “on” properly, it sounds like ‘oown’, similar to “aboot” in Canada. Other phrases: “I like ta” meaning “I almost”; “I liked ta hit yew in tha hayed with mah elbow”. Another phrase: “Your mama coulda spit yew outta her mouth” meaning you look just like your mama (re: spitting image).
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 4:30 pm :
“Your mama coulda spit you outa her mouth” is fucking priceless. “Ima” is big out here. “Ima go to the dolla’ sto.” “Ima go to bed.”
Veronica wrote on 11/17/06 at 4:44 pm :
I recently realized that I use “what all” more than I thought. As in, “What all are ya fixing to do?” and “What all was I supposed to get at store, again?”
Veronica wrote on 11/17/06 at 4:45 pm :
oh! And litebrite, I’m pretty bad about “hear tell,” too.
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 4:53 pm :
Veronica, it’s funny, because reading your writing, I cannot fucking imagine you with that accent in the SLIGHTEST. lol
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 4:59 pm :
I think the difference between the Midwestern Y’all and the Southern Y’all is the length of it. The Southern Y’all is long, like “Y’aaaallll,” whereas we have sort of a flat “yall”. I toss a “yall” now and then, but usually it’s not a “hey, yall”, like an addendum, but more of a subject, like “Yall are going to drive me up a wall.”
Deep thoughts… on Y’all…
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 5:11 pm :
While I’m hijacking my own comments, here’s a thing I was curious about - how prevalent is the work “fuck” in your neck of the woods? It seems everyone and their mama says fuck with fervor out here. I try to restrain myself most of the time, but I sometimes go on a fuck bender. (child asleep, of course)
trancejen wrote on 11/17/06 at 5:12 pm :
Just occurred to me that the phrase “going on a fuck bender” really, reaaaaally does not sound too great…
Loob wrote on 11/17/06 at 5:15 pm :
Where I grew up, kids at school used to put “but” at the end of their sentences instead of at the front.
“Who’s making the coffee, but?”
I too say “what all” nowadays. I didn’t grow up hearing that one, but I really like it.
Vickie wrote on 11/17/06 at 6:27 pm :
My favorite phrase which used to confuse my husband is “we’re going uptown”, which means any kind of shopping. “I am going uptown, do you need anything from the grocery store?” and my husband would just stare. It comes from my mom and grandma, I don’t know if it is a farm thing or what.
Rozie wrote on 11/17/06 at 6:38 pm :
I cringe every time I hear myself say “ahmuhnuh”. Probably a cross between redneck (Mom) and WDCR (White Dutch Christian Reform - Dad). Started as “I’m going to” then “I’m gonna” ending up as “ahmuhnuh”. Usage: Ahmuhnuh go to the store.
“Blue Hairs” referring to old ladies (who dye their hair that unique silver-blue shade). Also “go by” instead of “go to”, usage: Ahmunuh go by Russ’ (regional restaurant, popular with WDCR blue hairs). Holland Michigan
DivaGirl wrote on 11/17/06 at 8:13 pm :
Right on, greenwitch! I’m from Upstate NY too, and I still catch myself saying “wicked”.
Oh, the humanity!
Unfortunately, we have a horribly “nasal” accent in my next of woods whilst ALSO having the glorious habit of dropping our “t’s” and “g’s”, which sounds like, “It’s really importan’.” or “Where you goin’?”
Yes, I wents to skool.
Kungfukitten wrote on 11/17/06 at 8:16 pm :
I get horrible road rage and I get so flustered I mix my swear words together. Such as: dorkfuck, bitchhead, shitnads, forking duckshit, etc.
True wrote on 11/17/06 at 10:35 pm :
Another “hear tell” person here.
A friend pointed out a while back that most people do not say “Let’s meet by my house.” They say “Let’s meet at my house” or something along those lines, not “by.” Since he mentioned it, I noticed that in the greater Chicagoland area, we use “by” a lot in ways it’s not used elsewhere. “She went by the mall to find some shoes.” “Do you like that cake? I got it by the Jewel.”
(I do try really, really hard not to say “the Jewel.”)
SaturnCat wrote on 11/17/06 at 11:57 pm :
As a California Girl, I use “dude” a lot more than I should, especially with the inflections that indicate that the single word is an entire paragraph of meaning. “Dude.” “Dude?” “DUDE!”
I also lived in Houston for two years, and, as a result, cannot get “y’all” out of my vocabulary. It’s pretty funny, with my California/Western US “dialect” (I put that in quotes because, to me, I don’t have a dialect but folks from other parts of the country swear that I do.) to say, “I’d like to tell y’all something, dudes!” and whomever I’m talking to is, like, “Where the Hell are you FROM?” Heh.
Kathy wrote on 11/18/06 at 12:08 am :
My friend says cut on (or cut off) the light. I find myself saying “dick lips” quite often. Oh, and not so much… Like “do you want to go with me?” “yeah, not so much” and sometimes “penis toucher”
patricia wrote on 11/18/06 at 2:19 am :
With English not being my native language (though I’ve lived here for so long people will actually roll their eyes at me when I say this) I worked very hard to learn how to speak properly. I’ve been told that in certain settings I speak more formally than most native English speakers and I believe that to be true since, again, I worked hard to not stand out because of my language skills.
Having said that, I love words and I’ve discovered that as I get older and stop taking myself so seriously, I’ve adopted any phrase or word that appeals to me. I’m conscious, however, of the environment that I’m in. For example, I’ll drop a “y’all”, “stop tripping”, “mad crazy” or “up in here” with friends but I wouldn’t use any of those in the office.
I’m gonna bookmark this here entry because there are some things Imma wanna use in the future.
Trish wrote on 11/18/06 at 3:27 am :
I have been using “dude” since 1968, back when it was, “Hey, check *that* dude out.” (Meaning g-u-y) Now dude seems to be interchangeable. It took me a while to get used to being called “Duuuude!” at work.
Buttfuckit. As in, “I really should clean the house, buttfuckit.”
Calynda wrote on 11/18/06 at 6:25 am :
probably one of the truly odd things that I say (only really odd if you’re not on the West side of the country) is “Flip a Bitch” … meaning making a u-turn … the first time I said that around here (Delaware) I got all sorts of strange looks … of course my current boyfriend said that the first thing he thought of when I said it was a ho in a frying pan with a big spatula … and he didn’t really believe me until we watched S.W.A.T. and they used the term …
Jacki wrote on 11/18/06 at 9:28 am :
I lived in Upstate NY my whole life, and somehow I ended up with “y’all” in my vocabulary. Being that I’ve been thrown into this moldy corner of hell known as New Jersey, I have decided to make the most of my time and learn as much regional yiddish as possible to add to my mish mosh mouth. If I ever had a doll with a pull string that made it talk, the phrases would include: “Whatchyall doun?” , “Fuck that action”, “Lookaddis schmeckle!”, “gimme a hot second” and “not so much”. I would be sure to includewith athe doll a copy of my 1400 SAT scores (perfect verbal, haha!) to prove that this can happen to anyone. PS, everyone puts “anymore” atthe end of sentences to which it doesn’t belong, eg: “I’d like to find me a nice jewish doctor boy to settle down with, but alls we got around here is fuckinguh toolboxes anymore”.
Jacki wrote on 11/18/06 at 9:30 am :
I lived in Upstate NY my whole life, and somehow I ended up with “y’all” in my vocabulary. Being that I’ve been thrown into this moldy corner of hell known as New Jersey, I have decided to make the most of my time and learn as much regional yiddish as possible to add to my mish mosh mouth. If I ever had a doll with a pull string that made it talk, the phrases would include: “Whatchyall doun?” , “Fuck that action”, “Lookaddis schmeckle!”, “gimme a hot second” and “not so much”. I would be sure to includewith the doll a copy of my 1400 SAT scores (perfect verbal, haha!) to prove that this can happen to anyone. PS, everyone puts “anymore” atthe end of sentences to which it doesn’t belong, eg: “I’d like to find me a nice jewish doctor boy to settle down with, but alls we got around here is fuckinguh toolboxes anymore”.
Jacki wrote on 11/18/06 at 9:31 am :
ps, also “douchey” as in “i am cursed with a douchy computer that double-sends comments and in turn makes me look douchey”. sorry, I fall on my sword
Mike wrote on 11/18/06 at 10:22 am :
I think ‘I know thats right’ comes from a midwestern saying: ‘I know, right?’ which apparently people from other areas of the country do not say… I must confess, I say ‘I know, right?’ very often!
dataslave wrote on 11/18/06 at 10:35 am :
the funny thing is, a lot of us are going to pick up shit from this thread, start using it in places where it’s never been heard before, thereby scaring and confusing whole populations across the country. Nice, Jen. I’m already pulling “flip a bitch” out (or “oot”) first chance I get. wicked funny that, eh? (Northeast US mixed with southern Ontario)
dataslave wrote on 11/18/06 at 10:40 am :
bitchofit = worst part. “The bitchofit was that he already had 6 points on his license, he didn’t need this ticket.”
TeacherLady wrote on 11/18/06 at 1:29 pm :
My first year teaching, I had a student come up to me and say “What we be fi’in’ to do today?” I made her repeat it several times before I figured out what she was asking. That was my first experience with southern ghetto. I’ve been using “fixin’ to” my whole life (I’m fixin’ to take a shower), but “be fi’in to” was new to me.
Suzy Smith wrote on 11/18/06 at 6:13 pm :
““Flip a Bitch” … meaning making a u-turn ”
Around here, that’s whip-a-shitty.
I use a frightening amount of odd phrases and words. I’m orginially from Niagara Falls, NY but, have lived most of my life in the Northern Neck of Virginia. And, the NN has a scary number of its own phrases and accents.
Veronica wrote on 11/19/06 at 3:42 am :
I’ve got a twang. Not quite a Reba twang, though. It gets worse when I’m tired or drunk.
Bozoette Mary wrote on 11/21/06 at 10:44 am :
We’ve always split up the phrase “another whole” into “a whole nother” — as in “That’s a whole nother thing altogether.”
And, being so close to Baltimore, we go “downee ocean” when we go to the beach, and we call everyone “hon”. Actually, “hon” is singular (Welcome to Balmer, hon!), while “hons” is plural (We’ll all have to get together for a whole nother party, hons!).
rootietoot wrote on 12/5/06 at 1:25 pm :
and there’s “ahmoan”, as in “ahmoan go t’th’stoh-er and gitme sumose cornuts. wuntsum?”
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