Ya’ll probably need to work on your speakin’

When I was running for office a few years ago, a fella called to ask me some questions.

I answered five or six of his queries before he got to the last one.

“You sound like you’re from Indiana or Ohio. Which one is it?”

“Say what?” I responded.

I have lived in every corner of the state of Georgia and gone to college right smack in the middle at Mercer University. I grew up driving boats in a swamp two hundred and fifty miles south of this ole boy’s stomping grounds and I had never even been to Indiana or Ohio.

Likening a distinguished southern gentleman reared below the Mason Dixon line to a hick from French Lick, Indiana constitutes fighting words and I bit a hole in my tongue trying to not express my opinion.

For the record, there’s nothing wrong with the good people from Indiana or Ohio. In fact, I’ve befriended a number of them that had the good sense to move from there to here. They have their own quirks that come from being born up there, but on the whole, they’re good reliable people.

It probably shouldn’t have, but the insinuation of me being a Yank bothered me so I recorded myself talking on the phone one day. It was disturbing when I realized I had lost some of my drawl. I actually said “You guys” once instead of ya’ll.

That’s a problem. Ya’ll is the contraction of you all and the foundation of the southern dialect. Failure to use it, or it’s plurals – ya’ll all, or all ya’ll - is a sure tip that you ain’t from God’s country.

“You guys” has infiltrated southern speak to the point where anyone within fifty miles of an urban area hears it enough to begin making the term a staple of their vocabulary. The youngest generation has even blended the term together with their ancestors’ southern speak to come up with, “ya’ll guys.”

The fact is your grandmama’s southern language is a disappearing and those of us growing up down here are starting to sound like those of them that moved here.

Recognizing my shortcomings of my native toungue, I referred back to the handy book, “Southern Talk” so that I could reinsert my ancestral dialect into my daily conversations. So that you may do likewise I have included some of the southern speak foundations. Here are a few:

“Fixin’” which is southern for planning on, such as “I’m fixin’ to box some ears if you young-uns don’t behave.

“You’uns” which is sorta like ya’ll except that it means you people. You’ll hear it in a sentence like, “You’uns ought to come eat ribs with we’uns tonight.”

“Took a notion” like “Pork Chop took a notion to wallop Peanut on account of him being sweet on Pork Chop’s girl.”

“Smidgen” – a small amount as in, “Those green beans would be a heap better with a smidgen more of fatback.”

“Over yonder” which others refer to as over there. “You’uns should go over yonder to see the flowers Bobby Sue planted in the truck tires.”

“Now and agin” as in, “I used to see Betty now and agin, but not since she ran off with Norma’s man.”

“Make tracks” – get going. “If a man can’t act like an’ talk like a gentleman around my womenfolks he better be ready to make tracks in a quick hurry.”

“Hide ner hair of” which means you can’t find something like, “I ain’t seen hide ner hair of Uncle Oscar since he went of diving in gator holes.”

“Dogged if I know” which you hear in sentences such as “Uncle Elbert has a still near Green River, but dogged if I know exactly where.”

“Bad off” which is southern speak for very sick such as, “He was really bad off after he ate all them hard boiled eggs.”

So there you have a few basics of the southern vernacular. You can get more from Ray Cunningham’s book “Southern Talk” if you can find it. Use what you learn in there and nobody will accuse you of being from the northern lands.

As for my conversation with the guy who thought I was a Yankee, he told me that he was one hundred percent sure my opponent was from ‘round here, but liked what I was saying even if I sounded like I was from Indiana, but he wasn’t sure who he was going to vote for.

Then he asked where and when he needed to cast his ballot. The Election Day was Tuesday; November 8, and based on where he lived he was supposed to vote at the chamber of commerce in Cartersville.

“I tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you vote Wednesday at city hall in Euharlee.”

Some insults, you just can’t get past.