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| For the benefit of my overseas truckbuddies: the South is more a state of mind than mere geography, and as such its boundaries are hotly debated in some quarters; but this map tells you all you really need to know. |
What do you mean, slang? It's all just pure-T English to me.
N. B. -- I'm sorry to have to inform you all, but despite its name and its long history as a repository of Southern culture, Southern Living is nowadays - like every other venerable institution, it seems - run by up-to-date but woefully uninformed children, quite a few of whom aren't even Southerners at all! Hence, the magazine is no longer an infallible guide to things Southern, if it ever was.
Most terms are correctly defined and used here; some are a little off; and many were never peculiar to the South, but were (and are) widespread Americanisms. And a couple or three descend in unbroken line from the English of colonial times: e.g., reckon, meaning suppose or estimate,
I confess, I love to throw out reckon when I'm around hoity-toity oh-so-modern types, full of all the latest slang, just to
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3 comments:
Oh dear Russ, I feel terribly disloyal for this, but the use of ‘reckon’. at least in my part of the UK, has dwindled since the days of my youth. My (our) generation. are more liable to say "I suppose", or "I estimate” rather than "I reckon.” But the real sorrow is that the young generation, when faced with such intangible and imponderable concepts as ‘supposing' or ‘estimating’ will use the ubiquitous “dunno!” or the classic, disinterested shrug accompanied sometimes by a grunt. If Google can’t provide them with an answer, then the question was obviously wrong. But that’s the way of the world....I reckon.
Well I be John Brown! (In your language, c'est à dire I'm gobbed - or is it chaffed? Gutted, I think.)
Are you quite sure about that, Tim? I could have sworn that I have heard a couple of your recent Prime Ministers and their ilk use reckon in ordinary speech.
But no matter if they do or not. It is a perfectly good word for all occasions, and I have it on authority that such usage dates back at least to Shakespeare's time if not before. If it was good enough for ol' Will, it's good enough for me.
And too good for the current foul-mouthed, oh-so-cool generation of snobs and fools, and members of the Yankee hegemony, who spout all sorts of unintelligible gibberish as daily speech, but don't know a noun from a verb.
And so useful to skewer their pretentiousness with, and watch their faces go dark, as if one had just broken wind. Marvelously satisfying.
O, you guys - cut it out...
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