Southern Sayings
We chose 13 of the most
ridiculous Southern sayings — and tried to explain them.
1. “We’re living in high cotton.”
Cotton has long been a
key crop to the South’s economy, so every harvest farmers pray for tall bushes
loaded with white fluffy balls in their fields. Tall cotton bushes are easier
to pick and yield higher returns. If you’re living “in high cotton,” it means
you’re feeling particularly successful or wealthy.
2. “She was madder than a wet hen.”
Hens sometimes enter a
phase of “broodiness”
— they'll stop at nothing to incubate their eggs and get agitated when farmers
try to collect them. Farmers used to dunk hens in cold water to “break” their
broodiness.
You don’t want to be
around a hormonal hen after she’s had an ice bath.
3. “He could eat corn through a picket fence.”
This describes someone
with an unfortunate set of buck teeth. They tend to stick up and outward, like
a horse’s teeth. Imagine a horse eating a carrot, and
you’ll get the picture.
4. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
A pig’s ear may look
soft, pink, and shiny, but you’re not fooling anyone by calling it your new
Marc Jacobs bag. A Southerner might say this about her redneck cousin who likes
to decorate his house with deer antlers.
5. “You look rode hard and put up wet.”
No, this isn’t Southern
sexual innuendo. The phrase refers to a key step in horse grooming — when a
horse runs fast, it works up a sweat, especially under the saddle. A good rider
knows to walk the horse around so it can dry off before going back to the
stable. A horse will look sick and tired if you forget this step, much like a
person who misses sleep or drinks too much.
6. “He’s as drunk as Cooter Brown.”
Cooter Brown is an
infamous character in Southern lore. Legend tells that he lived on the
Mason-Dixon line — the border between the North and South — during the Civil
War. To avoid the draft on either side, Cooter decided to stay drunk throughout
the entire war, making him ineligible for battle.
Inebriated Southerners
have measured their drunkenness by him ever since.
7. “She’s as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine.”
When a pig dies,
presumably in a sty outside, the sun dries out its skin. This effect pulls the
pig’s lips back to reveal a toothy “grin,” making it look happy even though
it’s dead. This phrase describes a person who’s blissfully ignorant of reality.
8. “She's got more nerve than Carter's got Liver Pills.”
Carters Products started
as a pill-peddling company in the latter part of the 19th century.
Specifically, Carters repped its “Little Liver Pills” so hard a Southern saying
spawned from the omnipresent advertisements.
Alas, the Federal Trade
Commission forced the drug-group to drop the “liver” portion of the ad, claiming
it was deceptive. Carter's “Little Liver Pills” became Carter's “Little Pills”
in 1951, but the South doesn't really pay attention to history. The phrase
stuck.
9. “I'm finer than frog hair split four ways.”
Southerners mostly use
this phrase to answer, “How are you?” Even those below the Mason-Dixon know
frogs don't have hair, and the irony means to highlight just how dandy you
feel.
The phrase reportedly
originated in C. Davis’ “Diary
of 1865.”
10. “He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”
On farms (not just in the
South) roosters usually crow when the sun rises. Their vociferous habit wakes
up the house, signaling time to work.
An extremely cocky
rooster might think the sun rises simply because he crows. Similarly, an
extremely cocky man might think the same when he speaks — and also that
everyone should listen to him.
11. “That's about as useful as tits on a bull.”
Only female dairy cows
produce milk. Male cows are called bulls. And even if you could “milk anything
with nipples,” bulls tend to be rather ornery. Good luck with that.
12. “That thing is all catawampus.”
Catawampus adj:
askew, awry, cater-cornered.
Lexicographers don't
really know how it evolved, though. They speculate it's a colloquial perversion
of “cater-corner.” Variations include: catawampous, cattywampus, catty wonkus.
13. “He's got enough money to burn a wet mule.”
In 1929, then-Governor of
Louisiana Huey Long,
nicknamed “The Kingfish,” tried to enact a five-cent tax on each barrel of
refined oil to fund welfare programs. Naturally, Standard Oil threw a hissy fit
and tried to impeach him on some fairly erroneous charges (including attending a
drunken party with a stripper).
But Long, a good ole'
boy, fought back. He reportedly said the company had offered legislators as
much as $25,000 for their votes to kick him out of office — what he called
“enough money to burn a wet mule.”
We Northerners may not
know what that means, but at least we know where it comes from.
Bonus: Bless Your Heart
Almost everyone knows
Southern women drop this phrase constantly. But it might not mean what you
think it means.
In reality, the phrase
has little to do with religion and more to do with a passive-aggressive way to
call you an idiot. Depending on your inflection, saying “bless your heart” can
sting worse than any insult.
References
https://www.businessinsider.com/southern-sayings-2013-10