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 Southern
slang, or "Hickphonics," is a language that ought to be taught in all
our Southern schools. It probably ought to be taught in our Northern schools as
well in order to gain a better understanding of the language of the South. Here
are a few excerpts from the Hickphonics English Dictionary:
 | HEIDI - noun. Greeting. |
| HIRE YEW - Complete sentence. Remainder of greeting. Usage: "Heidi.
Hire yew." |
| BARD - verb. Past tense of the infinitive "to borrow." Usage:
"My brother bard my pickup truck." |
| JAWJUH - noun. A state just north of Florida. Capital is Hot-lanta. Usage:
"My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck." |
| MUNTS - noun. A calendar division. Usage: "My brother from Jawjuh
bard my pickup truck, and I ain't herd from him in munts." |
| FAR - noun. A conflagration. Usage: "If my brother from Jawjuh don't
change the all in my pickup truck, that things gonna catch far." |
| BAHS - noun. A supervisor. Usage: "If you don't stop reading these
Southern words and get back to work, your bahs is gonna far you!" |
| TIRE - noun. A tall monument. Usage: "Lord willin' and the creek
don't rise, I sure do hope to see that Eiffel tire in Paris sometime." |
| RETARD - verb. To stop working. Usage: "My grampaw retard at age
65." |
| TARRED - adverb. Exhausted. Usage: "I just flew in from Hot-lanta,
and boy my arms are tarred." |
| ARE'S - pronoun. Possessive case of we used as a predicate adjective.
Usage: "That there pickup truck is are's." |
| FARN - adjective. Not local. Usage: "I cuddint unnerstand a wurd he
sed...must be from some farn country." |
| DID - adjective. Not alive. Usage: "He's did, Jim." |
| EAR - noun. A colorless, odorless gas (unless you are in LA). Usage:
"He cain't breathe...give 'im some ear!" |
| BOB WAR - noun. A sharp, twisted cable. Usage: "Boy, stay away from
that bob war fence." |
| JEW HERE - noun and verb contraction. Usage: "Jew here that my
brother from Jawjuh got a job with that bob war fence cump'ny?" |
| HAZE - a contraction. Usage: "Is Bubba smart?" "Nah...haze
ignert." |
| SEED - verb, past tense. Usage: "Bubba dun seed it happen." |
| GUMMIT - noun. A bureaucratic institution. Usage: "Them gummit boys
shore are ignert."
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 An
Outsider in a small Texas town around Christmas time, saw a "Nativity
Scene" that showed great skill and talent had gone into creating it.
But one small feature was all wrong: the three wise men were wearing
firemen's helmets. Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation,
he left. At a "Quik Stop" on the edge of town, he asked the lady
behind the counter about the helmets. She exploded into a rage, yelling,
"You darn Yankees never read your Bibles!"
The Outsider assured her that he did, but simply couldn't recall anything
about firemen in the Bible. She jerked her Bible from behind the counter
and riffled through some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a
passage. Sticking it in the guys face she said,
"See, it says right here, 'The three wise men came from afar.'"
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