Mamie, Fode, and Southernisms

Speaking of "southernisms", to further show the differences between my Granny, known as Mamie aka Mary Margaret and her sister (my "Aunty" Fode aka Flora Katherine)  they tended to use different southern terms.

I can remember hearing my proper Granny saying things like, "He's too big for his britches" or calling a young person a "whippersnapper". She would be "gettn' ready" to go the store. "Once in a blue moon" she would have a "tip or two" with my Daddy after supper. And, she always wanted us to get our "picture made" in our "Sunday go to meeting clothes."

My Aunty, on the other hand, was a little more colorful to say the least - much to her sister's dismay. Someone poor "didn't have a pot to pee in". When my Granny commented that they had raised the drinking age from 18 to 21, Aunty's comment was that "the world was going to Hell in a hand basket." Where my Granny would refer to someone in the community as to having "passed away". Aunty would tell us, he was "as dead as a door nail."

Then there were the subjects Granny wouldn't touch. When it was revealed (in the 70's) that the daughter of some friends of the family was pregnant at the time of her wedding. Granny was gracious and in her proper way, just didn't acknowledge that small issue. (In her mind, like many southern ladies of her time, if you didn't talk about it - it didn't exist.) Aunty just laughed (as she took a long drag off her ever present Salem cigarette), "Well they ate dessert before they said grace."