Here’s an article from almost a year ago. Sadly, the whole thing still applies, especially the part about the government being catawampus….
Nightly the Yard Birds discuss subjects that fly right over my head. Joe Knows is always bringing up the science of the inside of the earth being a ball of fire. He said that if you don’t believe it, google what makes up a volcano and the fountain in Yellowstone. He goes on and on and on about Geothermal Energy, and at that point, steam starts to rise from my brain. Wonder if we could put that energy to use! Ed Hall always expounds about the news and facts about the politics of Georgia, and he could pretty much run Fox News with all the knowledge he can recite about the topic. Blake AlChevy, who insists his last name is Alford, spouts off about how many miles an 18-wheeler can get on a gallon of diesel fuel. And there I am in my motorized recliner trying to rack what’s left of my brain to sound like an expert on something.
Then it hit me. I have lived in the rural South for my whole life, and after nearly a century doesn’t that make me an expert on Southern words? I think it’s interesting to explore the origin of some of these words and phrases, and it will come as no surprise that many came straight from the farm. Of course, not all of them are polite such as “She is as big as the side of a barn.” That one can get me in trouble. Leaving out any phrases that would make my women friends “mad as a wet hen,” I thought I would teach these knuckle heads about Southern English.
I was raised near the fields in Buffalo, Alabama and farm life crept into much of our lingo. First of all, what is a “peck”? It’s two dry gallons of corn meal or any grain. I bet Ed Hall didn’t know that! What about “laid by”. No, it’s not an old Bill Clinton joke. It refers to the last plowing of the crop in the current year. Then there is the statement “until the cows come home.” Cows will leave their shelter in the morning and spend all day in the field grazing. The cows will come home as the sun sets, usually moving at a slow pace. In turn, this phrase applied to a lot of people I knew at the time. I bet my Yard Bird friends don’t know what “pummings” are? It is sugar cane stalks that are run through a mill with the juice squeezed out. Guess who else didn’t know this. Google. I was curious and looked it up on the internet, and it wasn’t there. Just another reason I tell my grandbrats that Generation Z shouldn’t be running the world.
Speaking of my grandbrats, I asked them if they had heard the phrase “stubborn as a mule”. Most of them are not often around farm animals, but they were quick to answer yes. And then the grandson, the one about to be an M.D., quickly replied, “Granddad have you heard of the word Jackass?”… Needless to say, I left the conversation.
Everyone has heard “He put his head on the chopping block” and knows that it’s the description of one who risks his life doing something stupid. But have any of my younger friends actually seen one? The chopping block is a large block of firewood where the farmer uses his axe to cut off the heads of chickens before they are hung on a tree limb to let the blood drain. Nobody likes the thought of it, but everybody likes fried chicken. Lastly, a phrase I am proud of and used quite often is “Catawampus”. It can describe a part of any apparatus that doesn’t fit, or it can be a word for anything not quite right.
I think our Government has gone “catawampus” and waiting for Politicians to get their act together is like waiting for the “cows to come home.” Like me, they are as “stubborn as mules.” You know, that reminds me of something Eisenhower said about bureaucracy many years ago. “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.”
Thanks I needed a good laugh.