1. You measure distance in minutes.
2. You've ever had to switch from 'heat' to 'A/C' in the same day.
3. You use 'fix' as a verb. Example: 'I'm fixing to go to the store '
4. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect or animal.
5. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
6. You know what a 'DAWG' is.
7. You carry jumper cables in your car...for your OWN car.
8. You only own five spices:
Tony Chachere, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and ketchup.
9. The local papers cover national and international news on one page but require 6 pages for local gossip and sports.
10. You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.
11. You find 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'a little warm'.
12. You know all four seasons: Deer Season, Duck Season, Crawfish Season, Summer.
13. You know whether another LOUISIANIAN is from, north or south, as soon as they start talking (speaking).
14. Going to Wal-mart is a favorite past time known as
'goin Wal-martin'
or
'off to Wally World'?
15. You describe the first cool snap (below 70 degrees) as good gumbo weather. YEP!
16. A carbonated soft drink isn't a soda, cola or pop...it's a Coke, regardless of brand or flavor.
Example: 'What kinda coke you want?' (Comment: I call them all soft drinks; Grandpère calls them soda pop.)
17. Fried catfish is the other white meat.
18. We don't need no stinking driver's Ed...if our mama says we can drive, we can drive.
19. You understand these jokes and forward them to your friends from LOUISIANA (and those who just wish they were).
Not EVERYONE can be a LOUISIANIAN, it's an art form and a gift from God.
Geaux TIGERS!
Part 2 of the email from my daughter. I separated them in deference to those of you with short attention spans.
I think I'm fixin' to post this to my blog, with credit of course.
ReplyDeleteJim, help yourself.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering just how many pages of Blanchards are there really in the New Orleans phonebook.
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, only three-plus columns of very small print. Did I ever tell you that we are related? Yes, it's true. I have Blanchard ancestors.
ReplyDeleteWell, numbers 2 and 16 also apply to Texans.
ReplyDeleteBillyD, we can share. Geaux Tigers!
ReplyDeleteWell, I didn't learn to drive 'til after I left home, cause my momma was skeered I would wreck their only car learnin'.
ReplyDeleteI'm fixing to go to the store = I'm going to the store? Fix used as a superfluous verb maybe? Fix normally is a verb although it's sometimes used as a noun - get my fix - but it's usually a verb, just not one that is either superfluous or an expression of urgency before an infinitive.
ReplyDeleteExample: 'What kinda coke you want?' (Comment: I call them all soft drinks; Grandpère calls them soda pop.)
ReplyDeleteReally? Must be a generational thing. To this day, I call 'em all "cokes."
And "fixin' to" is the abbreviated form of "fixin' to get around to it." Meaning an act to be performed in the near future, but not right this minute. A very useful term, actually, like "y'all," though much maligned by those who fail to grasp how much of the future it manages to make perfect.
ReplyDeleteSteph, I believe that Rmj responded to you. The phrase is loaded with meaning - mainly, not right now. I never said that Louisiana diction is perfect.
ReplyDelete"What kinda coke you want" is hilarious. I don't believe I've ever heard that. I must not be from Louisiana.
What to make of "all y'all", which is not on the list? I never say that, nor do I hear it, not do I say y'all to one person.
"Did I ever tell you that we are related? Yes, it's true. I have Blanchard ancestors."
ReplyDeleteWould you really want to be part of that bad Tennessee Williams play that is my family? All the self-destructiveness and none of the fascination of his characters.
Oh well, there's not a whole lot of them left anymore.
You can be my Grandmere anytime.
Doug, I AM from that bad Tennessee Williams family, but I like to think that we include a few of his fascinating characters.
ReplyDeleteYour Grandmère? Wait a minute. Before I consent to be your adopted grandmother, I want to know how old you are.
Grandmère, no truly informed Southerner has *ever* used y'all to address one person. When I use "all y'all," I am emphasizing the fact that something applies to the entire group, and not just a few members of the group. "Y'all are crazy" could mean that Grandmère, Doug, and Susan are crazy, but that others are not. If I say "All y'all are crazy," though, I mean that every single one of you is nuts.
ReplyDeleteMy students think it's hilarious that I use "y'all" in daily speech. They are also a little taken aback by my use of the word "hon," which probably identifies me not so much as a Southerner, but a Southern queen.
No, you don't want to be my Grandmere, and my Maman is still living.
ReplyDeleteI was born Christmas day in the year Sputnik went into orbit (look it up on Wikipedia you juvenile delinquents). I'm guessing that you were still a coed that year.
How about an honorary ma tante?
BillyD, "all y'all" is all nuance, right?
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, I'd be proud to be ta tante, the fascinating Tennessee Williams character addition to your family.
Who ax these questions?
ReplyDeleteJohn, sorry, but it's "axed" - like at the Audubon Zoo, "They all axed for you".
ReplyDeleteHas he? You said Louisianians use fix as a verb. My point was that fix has several meanings, and all of them assume fix is a verb. Louisianians have merely had the imagination to extend its use by creating yet another meaning for it because they must be naturally artistic souls. But it is still a verb.
ReplyDeleteI know a blogger who writes like he talks, who uses the expression "all y'all", which always confuses me, but he comes from Texas (and isn't Republican). Maybe its a good left wing socialist egalitarian all embracing expression, not exclusively Lousianian.
It can be used as a noun (slang) as in 'I need my fix' = 'I need my drugs' or perhaps 'I need my coke'.
BillyD, "all y'all" is all nuance, right?
ReplyDeleteRight. So if when your boss is leaving for the day and says to the employees, "I'll see y'all at 9:00 tomorrow" you might conceivably come up with some interpretation that didn't mean you yourself would actually be there at nine. If he says, "I'll see all y'all at 9:00 tomorrow," then you'd better get your ass out of bed in the morning.
Steph, I'm lost on the "fix".
ReplyDeleteBillyD, in these times, what the boss says and what he means when he leaves for the day is worth paying close attention to.
Also you're from Louisiana if your two favorite vegetables are Crawfish and Aligator.
ReplyDeleteLlort
Llort, welcome. Vegetables? What are they?
ReplyDeleteNo, I can't say that. Grandpère makes a wonderful garden, summer and winter.
The one thing I love most about Texas:
ReplyDeleteMacaroni and Cheese is a vegetable there.
Practically all of these are true of Texas as well, with local variations (tho' crawfish & gumbo are as well-known in parts of Deep East Texas as they are in Louisiana ;)
ReplyDeleteMacaroni and Cheese is a vegetable there.
You musta been watchin' over my son's shoulder when he ordered lunch at Luby's after church last Sunday :D
Practically all of these are true of Texas as well....
ReplyDeleteDavid, that's quite true. Texiens often horn in on Louisiana's stuff.
Thought fatback was "the other white meat".
ReplyDelete