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A
few years ago, I made a talk to a group in Fort
Worth. When I finished, an obviously educated lady of some means
chastised me for repeating a series of good ol’ boy expressions used
in East Texas.
“Don’t you think,” she began, “that using those expressions destroys
the integrity of the English language?”
She may have a point, but the last time I looked, there wasn’t an
organized movement by East Texans to bring political correctness to
the way they talk. Instead, the good ol’ boy expressions and idioms
for which we are famous seem to be proliferating and keeping pace
with today’s times.
The other day, for example, I heard a business owner describe a stern
and uncompromising manager this way: “He’ll stare down a computer.”
In my days, it went this way: “He’ll stare down a mule.”
While most of our sayings are being updated every day, most of them
are the products of rural folks who were forced to rely on their country
experiences to emphasize a point in conversations.
Consider these examples:
“She has as
much use for that as a hog needs pockets.”
”I had a piece
of pie as big as the baby’s high chair.”
“He’s smiling
like a mule eating briars.”
A
lot of word-stingy editors I’ve known will never accept this theory,
but there are a lot of expressions which make more sense than single
words. Such as:
Angry: “He’s
hotter than a pot of collards.
Big: “She’s
a well-watered woman.”
Foolish: “He
buys crutches for lame ducks.”
Amazement:
“Great gobs of galloping goose grease.”
Ugly is described by East Texans in more ways that I can count.
Here are some samples:
She’s so ugly
she could snag lightning.
He has a head
like a stomped ‘possum.
He looks like
the dogs have kept him under the house.
Never marry
an ugly girl; she’s hard to get shed of.
Bob Bowman's East Texas
November 21, 2010 Column, Modified 5-28-12
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
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