Southern Standard English

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, is still very much in daily use at all levels of British society. Isn't that right, Tim?   I stand corrected. 

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 fuck with their heads make them show their petty snobbery and ignorance.  And then I chuckle inside.

How to Speak Cockney

With a rubber glove to my china plate Tim:

Isn't Brit Romantic?

Kate Arnell schools us in the language of love, British style:

The Latest British Slang

I don't understand a bleedin' word of it, meself. What language is this in?

Away with the Fairies: How to Speak British

This episode of Anglophenia will having you talking Britspeak in no time: