Rufus Leakin

Guru of Folklore

Having been born and raised in the South, there are certain characteristics here that you just don’t seem to find in any other areas of the country, such as:

A possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.

There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the South. That’s also why my 90-year-old granny keeps a hoe handy.

There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 of them live in the South, plus a couple no one’s seen before.

If it grows, it’ll stick ya. If it crawls, it’ll bite ya.

“Onced” and “Twiced” are words.

It is not called a shopping cart, it’s called a buggy!

“Jawl-P?” means, “Did you all go to the bathroom?”

People actually grow, eat and like okra.

“Fixinto” is one word. It means, “I’m going to do that.”

There is no such thing as lunch. There is only dinner and then there’s supper.

Iced tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking it when you’re two. We do like a little tea with our sugar. It is simply referred to as the “Wine of the South.”

“Backwards and forwards” means, “I know everything about you.”

The word “jeet” is actually a question meaning, “Did you eat?”

You don’t have to wear a watch, because it doesn’t matter what time it is, you work until you’re done or until it’s too dark to see.

You don’t PUSH buttons, you MASH ’em.

Ya’ll is singular. However, ALL ya’ll is plural.

Almost all the festivals across each Southern state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect, or animal.

You carry jumper cables in your car — for your OWN car.

You only need five seasonings: salt, pepper, yellow mustard, Tabasco and ketchup.

The local papers cover national and international news on one page, but require 6 pages for local high school sports, the motor sports, and gossip.

You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.

You know what a hissy fit is mostly because you’ve probably had them before.

Fried catfish is considered the other white meat.

We don’t need no dang Driver’s Ed. If our mama says we can drive, then we can drive!