Southern Thing/Expression?

[ggainey]

For a southerner it sounds just as funny to us to hear folks up north use the word "wicked".

As in "It is wicked cold today"

[SmokeyJoe]

If something (or someone) was of no use or was worthless, an old friend of mine in Georgia used to say they were...

"As useless as t.i.t.s. on a boar hog."

Always made me laugh.

[andrewsutherland2002]

Originally Posted by SmokeyJoe

Exactly... it is an archaic usage. Like many "southern" phrases (particularly those used in secluded mountain regions - or hollows/hollers), they are often based on archaic english speech patterns.

My high school english teacher (in West Virginia) was fond of telling her students that many of the mountain dialects were closer to the "King's English" than modern American speech.

This is true. The use of "for" in this fashion is more formal than "because of". Our language keeps going down the tubes year after year. You do not hear it much b/c formal English is disapearing while slang words are becoming more prevalent. Check out any of the works of Shakespeare. You'll find he uses "for" rather than "b/c of" every time.

So before you go calling us "southerners" dumb, get the facts straight. There's just as many ignorant yankees as their are southerners.