Posted on 02/20/2005 7:45:38 PM PST by bayourod
Well, I will be glad to tell you the difference. If you are around a southern woman having a hissy fit...back off a few paces.
If she is having a conniption fit...run for your life out of the house.
The line seems to run through North Carolina, dips southward in Tennessee runs pretty much down the Mississippi. No proper sweet tea in Texas.
If your waitress (scuse me, server) does not say "what y'all want?", then you are not going to get any sweet iced tea. LOL
Whatever. Not everybody in New York speaks the same and I'm no English professor either.
Oh my. When I was first stationed at Fort Ord, CA with the Army, my Texas roots would rarely show, since I've never really had a strong dialect in my speech. But one of the last leftover expressions I retained for a few years was "fixin' to".
"I'm fixin' to go to the store."
"I'm fixin' to eat now."
Well, I've been in California for almost 15 years (stayed here when I got out of the Army), and I've long since lost the "fixin' to". I do still have the "y'all" sometimes.
But I've picked up some things here which are even worse. I catch myself constantly saying "like" and "dude", in totally bizarre and gratuitous parts of a sentence:
"I was like 'Dude, no way', and he was like 'Yes way'..."
"I was wondering like when you were going to be finished with that..."
"Dude, that's like so cool."
Or even just "Dude!" as a standalone expression.
God, I'm so embarrassed to admit this. But acknowledging that I have a problem is the first step to beating it...
Whenever someone addresses one person as "y'all" it's a sure giveaway that the speaker is faking it and isn't a true southerner. We never say "y'all" unless we're talking to two or more people.
"Ya'll" sounds cowboy. "You guys" sounds gay.
As to the first point: Why would you ask? It would be as pointless as asking if you'd like butter and salt in your grits. Duh, of COURSE I would!
In the South, tea is made in its drinkable form. Just sweet enough to no longer be bitter. It should never be saturated with sugar (but, sadly, it is sometimes done). Coincidently anywhere there is good Barbecue, there is also good sweet tea.
As to BBQ: I have always noticed that the pig on the sign(there is nearly ALWAYS a pig on the sign) is an indicator as to how fancy the BBQ joint is. If the pig is wearing overalls and a straw hat, the food will be good and the atmosphere will be "rustic." If the pig is wearing a tuxedo and tophat, the atmosphere will look nicer than the food will taste.
And often the desert menu consists of just two items: your choice of homemade banana pudding or peach cobbler.
Anything more would be too fancy. Anything less wouldn't be neighborly.
That would explain the duct-tape-and-hefty-bag windows on the first Borg cube.
Nah...that's from someone who is TRULY Southern--someone who realizes the South isn't monolithic. In some parts, Y'all is singular, and the plural is All Y'all.
"you guys"
Isn't it "Y'all will be assimilated"?
All y'all. LOL!
I guess I'm going to have to conform and start typing it as y'all instead of ya'll (ya all...do ya all want to go?).
LOL! that's a classic, 4CJ.
As a Southerner moved North (a very long time ago), "You all." (pn "yewal.")
Interestingly, though, I've come across this lack of distinction between the 2nd person singular and plural in several languages, not just (modern) English.
---Isn't it "Y'all will be assimilated"?---
if I had been thinking. actually, I thought "all Y'all's base are belong to us" was the prize winner.
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