The "King's" English
by: Jon Crane

Vol. 2, No. 20 (October 9, 1999)

I'm fixing to buy a new computer. Oh, by the way, if y'all don't speak the language, "fixing to" is Southern for "preparing to." And while we're on the subject, let me clarify one other thing regarding the King's (Elvis') English: the plural of "y'all" is not "y'alls." The plural is "all y'all." And y'all is one syllable. It is not "you all."

In fact, if you're from the North, it's probably best you don't try to use it at all if you're visiting down here. See, we find it offensive, like Yankees who come down to Biloxi Beach and wear black socks and shoes with their Bermuda shorts. That's like wearing white after Labor Day.

I recommend you stick with "youse" or "you guys" -- both perfectly acceptable Yankee words. But be careful with the latter. Down here we've spent generations keeping the distinction between "guys" and "girls" very clear in our minds and hearts. We've always appreciated the difference (see O'Hara, Scarlett, Gone with the Wind, Act I, Scene 2).

Continuing on this subject, there's one other thing that needs clarifying, too. Jeff ("You might be a redneck if …") Foxworthy once observed that the moment a Yankee hears a Southern accent, he automatically deducts 70 points from the speaker's IQ. But this is unnecessary.

I know many of us in the land o' biscuits and gravy speak a little on the slow side. We might start a sentence on Sunday and finally get around to the verb somewhere on Tuesday afternoon. However, it's the heat and humidity that slows down most things around here, including speech. It makes Yankees think we are a slow and dull people when all the while we're just waiting for a breeze.

But, oh! Southern speech! How sweetly it lands on the ear. Being highly metaphorical, how exact it is in its expressions and descriptions. Consider:

He was a mean a man as God ever waddled a gut in.
She's the honey in a bee tree.
He was feeling so low, he could'a sat on a dime.
I got the all-togethers. (I'm anxious.)
He was as nervous as a mule hitched by a railroad track.
A face so pretty, she could put a blister on your heart.
Talk about buckteeth? That girl could eat an apple through a picket fence.

So, don't make fun of us or judge us by our speech. We may throw a double negative or two into a sentence occasionally for emphasis, but most of us know better. It ain't nothing but our way. And don't try to imitate our dialect if you aren't from around here. In return, I promise not to try and imitate the dialects on NYPD Blue.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah … something about a computer. Well, more on that in another column.

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