Rural colloquialisms

[quercus alba]

I just read an article called "Speaking Arkansan" by a lady that had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I love the language of country folks and some of the expressions they use. The lady who wrote the article defined the phrase " she could eat apples thru a picket fence" as an unattractive woman. WRONG. It's someone who is bucktoothed. I prefer the term, "She could eat peanuts out of a coke bottle".

My all time favorite was one my dad used when someone was confused or had to stop and think about something, he'd say "they look like a calf standing at a new gate."

If a person is going to speak southern, they need to learn to do it right before they open their yap

[BarryBobPosthole]

I always heard it as ‘she could eat corn through a picket fence’.

I also grew up hearing ‘I could eat a bait of it’ describing how good some food was.

Another one was ‘He looked at me like a brahma bull looks at a white faced calf.’

And so many more it would take a coons age document them.

bKb

[Thumper]

Growing up, I always heard a buck-toothed gal described as “she could eat corn-on-the-cob through a chain-link fence”. Same thing, just a different region I suppose.

My grandfather would many times mention that someone (insert name) “don’t know shit from Shinola”.

If my dad wanted me to cut the grass (or insert chore here), I’d often hear, “Boy! You’ve got more excuses than Carter has liver pills!”

[Thumper]

Ha! You beat me to the corn thing P-hole, still a slightly different variation. Like you, I could come up with these things all day long.

[Thumper]

Of course, one of my favorites was, “she looks like she fell out of an ugly tree and hit every limb on the way down”!

[Thumper]

This is a bit off topic, but this conversation reminds me of the time my dad told me to go out and mow the lawn.

I came back with, “Why? It just grows back again!”

He replied, “Why do I feed you? You just get hungry again!”

I never said another word, then headed outside to grab the mower.

[quercus alba]

ugly as a mud fence was one my mother used

He looks like he fell out of an ugly tree and hit every limb on the way down

My grandpa looked the window one day while the dog was taking a dump, when grandma asked what he was looking at he said, "old Tip is broke down like a double barrel shotgun." I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard

[Penguin]

I always liked those verbal shortcuts.

In my hometown we have a ton of local ones. A lot of them from a long passed resident named Burton. He had some kind of fever/disease when he was a child and it kind of put his mind off kilter. But he was an ornery and beloved member of the community.

Examples:

He learned how to count to 100 but didn't get some of the nuances. Since there were forty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety.... the other variations of 10 melded into the same mold. Onety, twoty, threety, etc... His favorite gun was his "twoty-two with the hammer back".

Being not quite of sound mind, others who were touched a bit in the head scared him. One of them, George, got into an argument with him in the gas station one day. George started chasing him around the station. Burton picked up a chunk of firewood on his way around the station and clubbed poor George in the forehead when he rounded a corner.... wonder it hadn't killed him. In his own words he had "big oaked the SOB". And "big oaked" entered the local vocabulary.

He couldn't say friend... you were a fick. A good one was ficky-Joe.

He couldn't pronounce Zickafoose... it was Buckafick. Rookstool was Wooktool.

I could go on for hours.

Will

[Thumper]

Of course this was always said in a joking manner, but I remember my mom would sometimes say to my dad, "Do you love me?"

He'd bat his eyes, give her that "googly-eyed" look and say, "Honey, I love you like a pig loves slop!"

I remember that would always bust me up! He'd get that squinty-eyed "look" from mom, then give mom that innocent look like .... "What?"

[BarryBobPosthole]

Just sitting here smiling and thinking about one of my Mom’s favorites she’s say about ‘fast’ women. “She’d trip you and beat you to the ground’ she’d say.

One of my tough as nails old aunts always referred to a guy who spent all his money as ‘he shot his wad’. I always thought it was nasty but she used the saying pretty regularly without batting an eyelash.

BKB

[Thumper]

I remember when my grandfather was having a new driveway (gravel lane really) cut from the paved road up the mountain to the house (a fairly steep grade 'bout 1/4 mile long). They had the lane cut, but had yet to put the gravel down, when it started to rain. My grandfather came back from town and had a heck of a time getting his old Buick up that grade. He walked into the house all flustered and said he almost didn't make it up the hill 'cause that driveway is "slicker than goose snot!"

[BarryBobPosthole]

Slicker than owl shit was the one I always heard, although i can’t vouch for it from personal experience.

And if you went through something fast, you went through it like a dose of salts through a widow woman.

BKB

[Thumper]

I wonder which one is slicker?

Man, the longer I sit here and think about this, the hits just keep on coming. I could probably do this all day if I wrote down all the ones that are coming to mind right now.

I'd hear quite a few when I'd get in trouble for one reason or another.

Boy, I'm gonna tan your hide!

Boy, knock that off or I'm gonna jerk a knot in your tail!

I'm gonna slap you silly!

I'll smack you so hard your momma won't recognize you!

I'm gonna knock you into next week boy!

(I guess I got into trouble a lot)

[johnboy]

Slicker than snot on a doorknob.

[BarryBobPosthole]

My preacher grandpa told me once that a woman we saw walking looked like ‘two hogs fighting in a gunny sack’.

BKB

[Thumper]

She looks like she's been rode hard and put up wet.

She looks like 10-miles of bad road.

She's so ugly she'd scare a buzzard off a gut-wagon.

There's one I remember, but can't recall exactly how it went. It referred to the practice of a doctor slapping a baby on the butt to get it crying/breathing when born. It went something like this, "Boy, you're so ugly, when you were born, the doctor slapped yo' momma!

You smell so bad, you'd gag a maggot!

My grandmother would refer to someone throwing a "tantrum" as having a hissy fit or a conniption fit or threw a tissy. (Ha, for shits & grins, I just looked those words up! Hissy, tissy and conniption are real words. I had no clue)

[BarryBobPosthole]

It was known as a ‘ring tailed fit’ in our house.

BKB

[Thumper]

One of my mom's regulars (when I did sumpin' stupid) was, "Boy, if you had half a brain, it'd be lonesome for the other half!" She used another regular when I'd use the word "if" ... like "if I had a car, I wouldn't have to walk to school." She'd come back with, "Yeah, and if your aunt had balls, she'd be your uncle!"

Speaking of uncles, my Uncle Jessie always told me, "Boy, if they ever cut the top of your head off, there'd be nothing but nekkid wimmin runnin' out'ta there!"

[BarryBobPosthole]

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry fucking christmas.

One of my best buddy’s mom used to say ‘If wishes were horses beggars would ride.’

BKB

[Buckrub]

Happier'n a dead pig in the sunshine.
As confused as a runned over dog.
Crazy as a road lizard.
His brains would fit in a thimble and roll around like a BB in a boxcar.
Too fat to ride in the front.
Colder than the Devil's heart.
Hotter than the Devil's underpants.
So dry the catfish have ticks.
So wet the catfish are climbing trees.
Stupider than Uncle John's prize goat.
He'd a' been a lot taller if he didn't have so much turned under (big feet).
He's about two sammiches shy of a picnic basket.
His elevator don't go all the way to the top.
She's so ugly she has to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink.
and the one I learned here:
Darker than the inside of a cow.

And by the way, it's not "Carter's Liver Pills". It's "Carter's Little Liver Pills".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter...le_Liver_Pills

[Thumper]

Yep, I knew the "Little" was in there on the actual product, but whenever I heard it as I was growing up, it was simply "Carter's liver pills".

"You’ve got more excuses than Carter has liver pills" just rolls off the tongue a little easier than, "You’ve got more excuses than Carter has little liver pills".

Picky, picky, picky.

[BarryBobPosthole]

And something wasn’t just expensive it was ‘High as a cat’s back’.

BKB

[quercus alba]

That boy was high as a Georgia pine

If you had a thought it’d die of loneliness

She’s as fine as frog hair

He’d rather climb up a tree and tell you a lie than stand on the ground and tell you the truth

[quercus alba]

Grinning like a mule eating sawbriars

Won’t amount to a hill of beans

Nervous as a whore in church

Slow as molasses in the winter

Horny as a two peckered billy goat

[Thumper]

If we had a super heavy rainstorm, dad would say it's a real "gully-washer". The sound of the rain pouring off the roof and splashing on the front steps would "sound like a cow pissin' on a flat rock".

If you can't run with the big dogs, stay under the porch.

Colder'n a well digger's ass.

I'm so hungry I could eat the north end out of a south-bound mule. (then I'd be full as a tick)

Busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. (or a one-armed paperhanger)

He ran like a scalded ape.

[Arty]

Hotter than two mice humpin in a wool sock

Colder than a witches titty in a brass bra

Colder than a well diggers pick handle

She’s got a face that could stop a clock

The other ones I know y’all mostly mentioned.


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[BarryBobPosthole]

She’s got a face that could stop a clock




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I used to tell my ex wife when I looked at her time stood still. I don’t thonk she ever got it.

[Trav]

Couple of my favorites, if something is prevalent “you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one”. If a girl is known as a person of loose morals you would say “having sex with her would be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway” and one I heard from my brother about something great or something you like ‘it’s the tits”

[Trav]

Couple of my favorites, if something is prevalent “you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one”. If a girl is known as a person of loose morals you would say “having sex with her would be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway” and one I heard from my brother about something great or something you like ‘it’s the tits”

[Thumper]

Oh no! Now Trav has caught the dreaded Double-COVID from P-hole!