Favorite NC slang (Rutherfordton, Ruth: restaurant, best, weather)

[ddlove01]

Originally Posted by smittyc7

Likes folks moving here and thinking we speak strangely. We don't, by the way, the folks moving here do. But instead of saying, 'go back to where you are from if you don't want to adapt', we just look at newcomers and say, "Bless your heart".


Dave

This is why it is sometimes difficult for us to "adapt"! Still trying to fit in, been almost a year!

[gio2008]

does anyone know what "Well John Brown it" means

[gio2008]

I'm doing some work in Banner Elk, about 17 miles out of Boone. I asked a fellow where he was going and he said, "Bean-Thirty." (Lunch time.) That was funny.

[witchseavey]

Originally Posted by gio2008

does anyone know what "Well John Brown it" means

It's usually a stand in for an explative when used like that. "I'll be John Browned" is an expression of surprise. I assume it stands in for "I'll be hanged" given that John Brown was hanged.

[Charleston Class]

One of my best friends is from High Point and she'll always say..."I hate that" using her NC drawl. Which normally means, sucks for you, I love it, lol.

[rockinmomma]

It has taken me two days to read through this post. Ahhhh the memories.... both from back in the day and from just yesterday.

I grew up in Robeson County. I didn't say "daddy" it was more like "deddy"... and that went with grandedddy too. My gramma called panties "step ins" and when we had "company" she's let us in the "front room"

My brother and I had dirt clod fights in the cotton fields after the tractors went 'cross the fields.
I tend to put an extra syllable into anything I say. Shrimp becomes shree-ump.
One sayin' that popped into my mind was "coming up a cloud" meaning it is going to storm.
lessee... there's " up one side and down the other" as in that poor girl is ugly up one side and down the other..... bless her heart.
ummm... "as all get out" as in that poor boy is drunk as all get out...
I remember the day in second grade when I realized that chimney didn't have a "L" in it. I couldn't believe I had gotten it wrong on my spelling test.
We tend to call things by their brand names... Go look in the "Fridgedaire" and get me a "co-cola" or "Look beside the "Lazy-boy" (barcolounger if it was made of pleather) and gimmie a "kleenex""

I haven't traveled too much so I don't know what is "unusual". Although I do now live in the triangle and I reckon we're more "citified" here, I have known people not from around here. They all seem to get a kick out of the way I talk. My momma grew up in Germany and she used to call me and my brother down for "speaking Red Springs english" Sorry momma.... it kinda stuck.

Ohhhh BTW, I have been tracing my roots and all the places where people "talk like us" (PA, Arkansas, Texas, Illinois) are places that some of my kinfolk have migrated to many of those places. Back in the day, people would move as a community... maybe that's why we talk alike.

[lovebrentwood]

I've been here in NC for 16 years, married to a Raleigh native, and I've heard my husband and his family say a lot of words mentioned in this thread, but a lot of them we used to say growing up in western NY, too.

But I'm still not "fluent" in Southern... This week, I contacted the Democratic party locally to see why we received a postcard saying "Thank you for your donation" when we know we didn't donate anything. So a woman called and asked me: "YUH-BAH-O-BA-MASAHNS?" I had to ask her to repeat it 3 times. I kept thinking she was saying something related to Asians (Mamasan? Bamasan?)

Finally, I understood. She was asking, "(Did) you buy Obama signs?"

[Ragdoll Kitty Lover]

This whole thread was fun to read. I moved here from 20 miles South of Boston in early '07 (and that would be Bawstin there). We used to call Coke or Pepsi Tonic, not pop or soda. You put ice cream in soda. When I was in Pig Pickins about a month ago, I saw a vintage Coca Cola sign from about 1890 by the counter claiming that Coke was a "Wonderful Nerve and Brain Tonic". So that's where we got that term!I notice that our native NC friends here turn 1 syllable into 2 (tea im instead of Tim), and put more emphasis on the first syllable of words such as INsurance and the town of ADvance. We have lots of fun talking together, because Tim can also really drop his R's like I do, and I practice Southernisms. He grew up Pawfftown (Pfafftown). Took me awhile to get the pronunciation right on that one.What have I noticed about the region? I love the way the triad natives say Thank yewwwww. I've picked that one up!

The one that did shock me when I first arrived was hearing "Where you at?" yelled out in a store.
And last of all " I axed him" instead of "I asked him". I heard this down near Charlotte and over the border into SC.

[Catbirds]

When I first started dating my ole mountain man about 9 years ago, I knew I had a keeper when he told me he would hang with me like a hair in a biscuit. Although I have lived in N.C. all my life in the foothills, that was a new one on me.

[hymnsinger]

I read the entire thread and didn't see " . . . do you care to . . ." or . . . "if you don't care to . . ." as in, "would ya care to hand me that bucket?" or "Hand me that bucket if ya don't care." or "Can I get that bucket for you?" he offered. "If you don't care to!" she replied.

Meaning: Would you please, or if you please, or If you don't mind.

My current favorite exclamations: "Holy ______!!!" (Cow, mackerel, or s*it), and "My WORD!" Oh, and "Great Day!"

My grandmother used to say "Great day in the mornin!"

Oh, and agreeing by saying "Amen!!" I do that all the time without even thinking about it!

My kin hales from from south Jawga and central 'Bama so I picked up all the slang, but I was raised in Miami (Miamuh) so I lost the drawl. I can turn it on if I 'ont to tho.

By the way, when I lived in Live Oak, FL (I swear on the Bible!), I mowed the grass and found a car (REALLY!!), the porch fell on the dogs (cross my heart!), and I got married at my family reunion! (And no, we were not previously related, lol) I also turned a snake loose in the house to eat the mice, and my neighbor shot a rabid 'coon out of the loblolly in my front yard! Not long after that he brought me a mess of fish, a 20 lb catfish! He asked me if I wanted some deer meat (I said "Sure!") and he dropped off a field dressed carcass in a large garbage bag! LOL! That was some good eatin'. They asked me if I wanted some fresh chicken, and again, I said "Sure!" They said come on over . . . I got a great lesson on how to kill and butcher hens, and also learned about "stick tight" fleas that run up your arm (by the thousands!) when you scald the bird in the cane pot! That's a large cast iron kettle on an outdoor fire filled with bollin water! This was a "Cracker family" who had lived on and farmed that plot of land for generations. Awesome people!

That was the year my son fell on the pitchfork in the yard and got hung in the "bob war" fence . . . he still has the scar from the fork in his calf. As for the fence, my dd called me to, "Come home from work, Robert's hung in the fence." All the way home I tried to imagine what was waiting for me. When I got there, he was hung up so bad, I had to cut a piece out of the fence and take him AND the wire in the house to get it out of him! He had crawled through the wire and it had hung up on his jeans AND under the skin! Those were the days . . . He says now that he's surprised he survived his childhood . . . Great memories. He's in a powerchair now . . . he doesn't get into as much trouble these days! (Becker's Muscular Dystrophy). Bless his heart, he just brought me a piece of cake that he made! He's sweeter than peach cobbler!

One more . . . when I was a little girl,I remember my Daddy sayin', "Don't ever marry no dam yankee!" I never knew what he meant and when grown brushed it off to good 'ole southern bigotry . . . No offense to you good yankees (my best friend is a yankee!), but man was he right!! I showed THAT one the door in a hurry!! Yes, the one I married at the reunion. Boy is MY face red! LOL!! "The South will rise again!!" But of course in a new age of Justice and Equality . . . eventually.

Bless y'alls hearts!
Tracey