Funny Local Expressions

[TimothyBFan]

I thought about it, but knew there were an awful lot of FIB's, er...I mean, lovely people from Illinois on this board.

FIB: F*%$ing Illinois B$@*&#*! "Those FIBs always come up to Milwaukee for the Cubs games!!!"

I guess that could include us from Indiana also?

[Prettymaid]

These days I tend to incorporate soda and pop into sodapop!

Let's see, we wear gymshoes, not sneakers.

That's a good one - we call them tennis shoes down here.

We measure distance in time. "How far is Target?" - "It's about 5 mins away".

I always thought that was a girl thing!

[glenneaglesfan]

Oh. I've enjoyed these! Molly - Wisconsin speak must be distinctive. Over here in Plymouth the locals speak "janner" and it's just found fame on television with a promo ad starring Paul Whitehouse.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tuVGST_1gE[/ame]

Apparently, the fans were shouting "Green Army" at the England/Croatia match the other day!

[MikeA]

There were a couple of others that I thought of while reading those from other parts of the country/world.

In Arkansas, it was always couch and not sofa or divan.

"Fixin'" was always used a lot. "I'm fixin' to go to the store".

"White Bread" (the "regular bread" bought by the loaf, i.e "Wonder Bread") was always referred to as "Light Bread". I have no idea why.

Chickens lay aigs in Arkansas and folks have laigs instead of legs. We have fangers instead of fingers.

Oh, and our three meals were "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Supper". I had no idea what "Lunch" was until I was in junior high school!

Any carbonated soft drink was a coke. You might order an "orange coke" if you wanted an "Orange Crush", or a "grape coke" if you wanted a "Grapette or NuGrape". Or it might be an ROC coke (RC Cola).

[sodascouts]

Your first and last expressions are very popular in Texas too! (for those who aren't familiar with the term, "Fixin' to" means "getting ready to/about to."

I heard a funny expression today from one of my friends. We were talking about her dissertation and she said "It's beginning to firm up, but it isn't Jello yet." I thought that was a clever way of saying something wasn't done!

GEF - love that video!

Now, I have to give my comment on the soda issue. In Texas, as in neighboring Arkansas, all soda was called "coke" no matter what unless it was something special like Dr. Pepper or Sprite (as Mike said, you could qualify it by saying "diet coke" or "grape coke" etc). It may seem confusing but there it was. You'd go into a restaurant and ask for a coke and no one ever said "We have Pepsi products, is that OK?" The first time I got asked that up north I was like "ummm.. Of course... DUH!" However, I figured using "coke" as my username might cause some folks to get the wrong idea... soda it became! And I'm so glad. I wouldn't want my nickname to be "Coke." Soda is much better.

[Freypower]

Re soda water: here it is a very specific type of drink made by Schweppes, whichi is like carbonated mineral water but with a slightly acid taste. My mother used to enjoy a drink that mixed vermouth (Cinzano) with Schweppes soda water.

When I was talking about 'fair dinkum' I forgot to say that when you use it in a phrase such as 'it's fair dinkum' you mean 'it's the genuine article', but if you say to someone 'are you fair dinkum' you're saying 'are you for real'?

Many Australian words are abbreviated by sticking 'ie' on the end. Examples:

brekkie - breakfast
cossie - swimming costume ('bathers')
pressie - present ('gift')
barbie - barbeque
Chrissie - Christmas
Brissie - Brisbane

Or people's names have 'y' stuck on them - Jonesy, Gibbsy, Warney (cricketer Shane Warne), Hawkey (former PM Bob Hawke).

Or 'o':

arvo - afternoon
smoko - taking a smoking break

People's names - Davo, Johnno, Stevo, etc.

What DOES this sound like.

[Maleah]

This one brought back a memory for me. I've said before that alot of my family is from down Brooke's way and I remember as a kid, when they came up north for the first time to visit us, and one of the kids asking for a "sody". I about died laughing because it seemed so funny to me. My mom smacked me and told me to be nice! Us Yankees call it POP!

Darn right!


I've been trying desperately to think of some but everything seems NORMAL to me so it's hard to separate the common from the uncommon. LOL


As you can tell from above....here we call it "pop" too.

As someone mentioned, "oofda," or however you choose to spell it. lol

Pete Sake - as in "oh for pete sake." I tend to use it when I think something is ridiculous or when I'm annoyed. Like when I get up to get myself something to drink and then my sister asks for something....and then my niece asks for something....by the time my brother in law asks me to get him something while I'm up I'm already saying "oh for pete sake" lol

My dad ALWAYS says "were you born in a barn?" lol Generally when we left the door open or the lights on.

Everytime someone asks my Dad how he's doing, he always replies "oh fair to middlin'" which I always thought was weird until I started to hear a lot of others saying it. lol

I'll try to think of some over the weekend for you all

[MikeA]

Back in the 60's If I was at a party and "fixin to leave", I might tell a friend, "I'm gonna light a shuck and crash". "Crash" back then was "to go to bed" but in the 60's "crash" became a term that described the depression experienced when coming down from a "high". At that time, the correct terminology for "going to bed" reverted to the traditional "I'm gonna hit the hay".

The polite term we used when referring to "going to the bathroom" was that we were going to "find a sandbox" (cat lovers would understand that one).

When we were kids and too young to drive, when going somewhere and there was more than one kid, we would call "SHOTGUN" to win the right to sit in the front seat by the passenger door.

We would get in trouble when we saw a Volkswagon and call "BUG SLUG" and than whop whomever we were sitting next to on the shoulder. We took a lot of long but cheap trips as a family in the car...sometimes going cross country and the trip got quite boring.

(ED for accuracy) Maleah is absolutely right. I had it wrong. It was "Slug Bug", not "Bug Slug."

The most popular car "trip" game was Auto Bingo. It was just BINGO but instead of numbers, the cards had the Manufacterors names across the top (Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Buick, Chrysler) and the model names usually with a color (like white Corvette) to the sides. When you spotted one and found it on your card, you would mark it. "Back then" we all knew at a glance what each car we saw was....they all looked distinctive...not like today where in many cases, the only difference between two models is the name.

[Maleah]

LOL Mike we still "call shotgun" and "hit the hay" up here.

And our variation on the bug thing is "slug bug." We also do "bruiser cruiser" for a PT Cruiser! It can be a painful day

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Maleah - my grandmother used to say "fair to middlin'" too. There's another one she used to say all the time that I have to figure out how to spell before I can even post it.

And one of Mike's earlier post remind me of a fairly common one used by us here in Virginia - we say someone is "up the creek without a paddle" whenever someone gets into a sticky situation or is 'SOL'.

Now re: soda or pop - around here we mostly just say soft drink.