We’re fixin’ to teach you to talk like an NC native: A Guide to Southern Sayings

A North Carolina driver’s license and a college team sweatshirt say you live here, but you haven’t fully embraced life in the Tar Heel state until you learn your fixin’ to’s.

As in, we’re fixin’ to teach you how to talk like a native, or at least like someone who’s been in the state since they were knee-high to a grasshopper.

Socio-linguists at N.C. State University’s Language and Life Project identify five distinct dialects in North Carolina: Southern Appalachian Highlands, Virginia Piedmont, North Carolina Piedmont, Coastal Plains and Pamlico Sound.

While each of these may have developed in relative isolation, carrying forth the remnants of Native American languages and the speech patterns of early settlers from England, Scotland, Ireland and enslaved people from Africa, there has been a lot of sound mixing since then.

Some of the utterances once unique to the mountains might now be heard in the coastal plains, and bits of the Brogue that defines portions of the Outer Banks are sometimes echoed along the Virginia border.

Even so, you can say you live in North Carolina without saying you live in North Carolina. Just say that you might could cut on the lights, put on a toboggan and hang in there like hair on a biscuit.

Small details

▪ Y’all. Notice the placement of the apostrophe — it means you all. All y’all means every single one of you all.

▪ Fixin’ to means getting ready to do something; how soon is a matter of context. Fixin’ to look for a new job could mean anytime in the next few months. If your mama says she’s fixin’ to whip you, she means now.

▪ Caddywampus, caddycorner, sigogglin’ (pronounced SIGH-gog-lin), are regionally different ways of saying crooked or out of true.

▪ If it’s blowin’ up a storm, y’all need to come inside to get out of the rain and keep from getting hit by lightning.

▪ Carry means to take something or someone from one place to another, sometimes literally in your arms (Can you carry these groceries in?) but often by car (Can you carry me to the DMV?).

▪ Mash is what we do to buttons.

▪ Toboggans are knit caps worn on the head during cold weather. Sleds are ridden downhill in the increasingly rare snow.

▪ Cut on/cut off is what you do with electrical appliances.

▪ Might could means it’s possible, you’ll look into it, but you’re not totally committed.

▪ Mommicked is used in parts of Eastern North Carolina to mean fouled up, but can also mean flustered or annoyed.

▪ Coke can mean any kind of carbonated drink. So can drink, as in “I’ll carry you to the Dairy Bar for a hamburger and a drink.”

▪ Directly means happening soon-ish.

▪ Something – or someone – that is no ‘count is worthless. Shortened from “of no account.”

▪ ‘Druthers are what you have if you would prefer to do something a certain way: “If I had my ‘druthers, I’d pay someone to paint the house.”

▪ If you need something like you need a hole in the head, you don’t need it.

▪ Some friends are thick as thieves, and sometimes the phrase suggests they’re just as trustworthy.

▪ ‘Jeet yet? Y’ont somethin’ deet? Would be asked of family arriving at your home after a long trip. If they haven’t eaten yet, they would certainly like something to eat.

▪ If you feed them something delicious, they might say it was “so good it would make you want to slap your mama.”

Hey! How are you?

If you’re doing well, you might say you’re:

▪ Fine as frog’s hair

▪ Living high on the hog (derived from the location on the pig of the costlier cuts of pork)

▪ In tall cotton (which is easier on the back than picking low-growing cotton)

If things are just OK, you might be:

▪ Tolerable well (from tolerably)

▪ Fair to middlin’ (interpretive signs at Yates Mill in Wake County explain this comes from grain mills and refers to a medium-fine grind.)

Not doing great?

▪ Could be you went from the frying pan into the fire, making things worse than before.

▪ If you’re out of money, you’re poor as a church mouse, too poor to pay attention, broke as the Ten Commandments and you probably don’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out.

That’s hard to believe

▪ As I live and breathe

▪ Butter my butt and call me a biscuit

▪ My left foot

▪ My hind foot

▪ Good night!

▪ Good day!

Compliment or curse?

▪ If someone says, “Bless your heart,” it might mean they really appreciate a kindness you did or feel sorry for something difficult you’re going through. It could mean you failed at something but they know how hard you tried. It could also mean they think you’re dumb as a bag of hammers (see IQ test, below).

▪ Isn’t he precious is much the same as bless his heart.

▪ Lord, have mercy can be an audible prayer for someone going through hardship, an expression of shock, or pity for someone’s abject lack of common sense.

Are you angry?

▪ You might be madder than a wet hen or fit to be tied.

▪ Maybe there’s a bee in your bonnet.

▪ Sometimes people fly off the handle.

▪ If you’re angry and you need to set someone straight, you might be fixin’ to have a word of prayer with them, or a come-to-Jesus meeting.

Maybe you just have a bad disposition.

▪ Some people are meaner than a striped snake (pronounced stripe-ed) or meaner than a wet cat in a tote sack.

▪ Put me in a tote sack and I’d be ill as a hornet.

Looking good

▪ You might be pretty as a peach or pretty as a speckled pup.

Having a bad hair day?

▪ He looks like eight miles of bad road.

▪ He looks like he was rode hard and put up wet (like a horse after an intense run).

▪ That dress is ugly as homemade sin.

Can’t talk now

▪ I’m as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger.

▪ He’s busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

▪ Running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

▪ My boss has been working me like a rented mule.

▪ He’s so far behind he thinks he’s in the lead.

▪ She’s got a long row to hoe (but she’s been working so hard, she’s in the short rows now, a reference to the rows planted in an odd-shaped field that narrows to a point).

▪ Maybe he’s not that busy, he’s just slow as a molasses in January.

Can’t take you anywhere

▪ If you’re behaving badly, your mom might jerk a knot in you, tell you to act like somebody or threaten to smack you into the middle of next week.

▪ If you’re saying unkind things to or about others, you’re being ugly.

▪ Someone acts really ugly, he showed his behind.

▪ If someone acted so ugly to the clerk she can never be seen in that store again, she showed her WHOLE behind and threw an absolute hissy fit.

Man’s best friend

▪ Dogs feature prominently in Southern life and language. A dog that looks fierce but is really gentle wouldn’t bite a biscuit.

▪ If there’s no way a plan can work, that dog won’t hunt.

▪ If I have no dog in this fight, I’m neutral as to the outcome of the argument. (As opposed to neutered.)

▪ If people are thick as fleas on a dog’s back, the place is really crowded.

▪ Don’t expect special treatment: you have to learn to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch.

The whole menagerie

▪ After a big meal, you might feel full as a tick and happy as a pig in poop

▪ If you haven’t seen someone in a while, you haven’t been together in a ‘coon’s age (must be a captive raccoon, which can live up to 20 years).

▪ Been sick for a while? You’re probably weak as a kitten.

▪ When you agree to one thing and you get something totally different, that’s a pig in a poke and the person who dealt it to you is probably grinning like a mule eatin’ briars.

▪ Too bad you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

▪ So many people are moving to North Carolina, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a retiree from Florida.

I’m not conceited, I’m just the best

▪ He’s so full of himself, he thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.

▪ She’s getting too big for her britches.

▪ They’re really puttin’ on the dog with this party so people know they’re wealthy.

▪ If they’re not wealthy but want others to think they are, they’re putting on airs.

Not aging well

▪ He’s older than dirt in dog years.

▪ She’s old as Methuselah, who died at age 969 according to the Book of Genesis.

About the size of it

▪ The cake I baked fell flat as a fritter.

▪ My brother’s dachshund is fat as a mud ball.

▪ The yoga instructor is not big as a minute.

Say what?

▪ That man could talk the ears off a brass monkey.

▪ This information is between you, me and the gate post, because I shouldn’t be telling it.

▪ That kid would argue with a gate post/fence post.

▪ My husband is mule-headed/stubborn as a mule.

If brains were dynamite

Southerners don’t like people from other parts of the country thinking we’re dumb, but we have a million ways to comment on each other’s intelligence.

▪ My best friend doesn’t have the good sense God gave a billygoat/goose/squirrel.

▪ He doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain.

▪ She’s dumb as a rock/doornail/bag of hammers.

▪ He wouldn’t know how to pour p–s out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.

▪ So ignorant, doesn’t know if Christ was crucified or got run over by a bicycle.

▪ That guy doesn’t know his rear end from his elbow/from a hole in the ground.

▪ She’s duller than dishwater.

▪ He’s dumb, but he managed to accomplish something anyway because even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.

Where to now?

▪ I have trouble with maps and sometimes have to go around my butt to get to my elbow (can also mean you do things the hard way).

▪ Searched all over hell and half of Georgia.

▪ My aim with a gun is so bad, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

You’ve got some nerve

▪ He’s jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Do you solemnly swear?

▪ Some people would rather climb a thorny tree and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.

▪ That salesman is slicker than snot on a door knob, always saying what you want to hear.

▪ A written contract may be worthless; paper will sit still for anybody.

To the max

▪ It’s been a long day and I’m worn slam/slap/plumb out.

▪ I’m tired as all get out.

▪ That’s it, we’re about done: That’s purt’ near it.

How hot is it? ‘Hotter than a jalapeño’s armpit,’ and 85 more ways to say it’s hot.