British Couple Attempt To Guess What These Southern US Words Mean 

I've heard women from parts of Alabama that were born in the early 1900's say "That baby is about to throw a hissy". Basically synonymous with tantrum. I don't recall ever hearing anyone born post-war or any men use that term.

Interesting. I do use it like that. So it must be used differently in different areas of the south.

I am not sure where he is getting his definitions but "Hissy" is just short for "Hissy fit". I usually heard it as "throwing a hissy" but in all cases it means a tantrum. I've heard it recently so it is definitely still in use.

Yeah I agree. I have heard of only "hissy fit" but I guess maybe in some pockets it might be different.

I have NC

As a Texan that was perfect usage.

She nailed it! Classic!

Well done, Millie! 👏🏽

@@3b1g4k Hell yes!! Corpus Christi here!!

I'd say she proved she understands the more cutting interpretation of that phrase, and it went right over Beesley's head. 😅

me to

This Tennessean has to agree with you. Millie sounded so charming when she said that to James. She's a southerner at heart!

Hey from Tennessee! We love y'all!

these were so easy growing up in Florida and Tennessee my whole life

i spoke too soon some of these like druthers are foreign to me haha

Lol! Perfect!

😂

I'm fixin to watch em but I gotta stop piddling around and acting all catawampus 🤣

Should be 'fixin ta'

@@alexandramiles-lasseter8263 eh depends I live in SC and I’ve heard “fixin uh”

..and she pronounces "Nevada" correctly. I think she should be made an honorary American

@@mrich1976 "Djeet" is something you might hear here in Rhode Island. We even had a restaurant by that name.

My Georgia uncle says "ruther" instead of "rather" - "I'd ruther have cake than pie." It's a short leap to "druthers" from there. My "druthers" = my preferences.

...I am American, and I did not ever put that together, makes sense

"If I had my druthers, I'druther have my druthers than any other thing I know."

Druthers is not just southern. We use it in Maine. The north eastern area on Maine (ironically referred to as downeast) has their own dialect that is quite similar to the deep south Acadia dialect.

I thought those same things

Yes, horse drawn carriage here in Oklahoma.

Same

In my experience it is; we have a:"insert main course" and "all the fixins". Fixins are basically trimmings and such.

Buggy can mean multiple bugs. Generally said when bugs got into the house in the evenings.

I laughed really hard

They are indeed welcome in new York state as well, they were in the city there is an entire other state too see, the lakes are amazing it's just very snowy right now 😂

Im from Durham NC and some of these i aint heard of but theres a difference wen u live in a city vs live in the country... my girlfriend is from Charleston sc she calls it a buggy and i call it a shopping cart theres a whole lot of difference all thru the south i was born in Miami and that dont even feel like the US anymore

Greensboro 👋🏻

I'm born and raised in North Carolina, but some of these I've never heard of. I do know most though. The fact that neither could get "mudding" made me laugh. Also, the 'bless your heart' is golden in the Carolinas. Lol

I was taught that it was a Spanglish word for a laundromat as the word in Spanish for laundry is "lavanderia." Apparently, it was a brand name like Kleenex or Bandaid for washing services when Laundromats first started.

I'd never heard that term before either, but laundromat was the first thing that popped into my head.

Exactly

Yes!. Piddling is messing around. Piddly is a small amount of something.

@Atheos B. Sapien that would be the word piddly not piddlin

Exactly!

Yes, piddly is an adjective whereas piddlin' is a verb

We use piddling as ..we are doing little stuff around the house or yard .

Piddling from my growing up means wasting time. Where as piddly meant Small amount.

In Alabama, messing around and doing nothing is called "Pee-diddling". And, "Piddling" is either drizzling or pissing. Now, I'm in Virginia. All the words are different here!😅😅

I moved to Maryland from Pennsylvania many years ago and the first time I heard "piddling" used for a small amount was from a fellow worker who grew up in "Pigtown" in Baltimore City.

@@stefanfrankel8157We used piddling for all those contexts here in Washington state.

Exactly. For example, imagine that it is a nice evening and you are sitting on the porch watching the sun go down, petting your little kitty and then the neighbors dog runs up starts barking and the cat freaks out starts hissing and clawing and trying to scratch it's way to the top of your head. You would later tell your friend: "I was sitt'n in my chair watching the eve'n, pett'n little Missy and then Bud's dog ran up barking and then everything went catawampus."

That is completely true but it doesn't change the actual meaning. When a situation goes "Catawampus" it is the Southern equivalent of saying the situation went "sideways".

@@jasonweible2834 never knew that.. In the north we say "Kittywampus".

That’s how we used it growing up.

@@brandonmajors3007 likewise

There's also the term "Dune Buggy" which is a type of 4-wheeler vehicle. I think "Buggy" just means "wheeled contraption to carry something" and covers everything from cars to carts to strollers.

Yes remember that tongue twister!!

Baby buggy was used for a long time. Stroller is fairly recent when different designs started being made. I’d say 1960s or so. I was never in a stroller - my mom had a baby buggy for us. I’m 65

You can also drive somebody buggy.

So would I, a lifelong Georgian!

@@Ansible1000 Not in Texas!

​@vivians9392 Texans do say such a thing. I was born and raised in the RGV, and down here we call them both washateria and laundromats.

Except James totally missed the burn. She meant one and it totally went over his head. She gets TWO points and he gets zero.

lol me too, I like saying it because people look at you like you are insane. Anything that is slightly askew I say it's cattywampus and watch for reactions. Just like people getting bamboozled lol xD

I say it catterwampus

I've also always said Cattywampus.

Rebecca, that may be true but I understood everything you wrote. 😁

@@rossmacintosh5652 some of us like to write correctly but we talk WAY different from how we actually write.

@@elizabethsjourney701 Same here in Canada. Have a great tomorrow. Cheers!

@@rossmacintosh5652 Just because we are southern doesn't mean you have to have poor writing skills. We may speak with an accent but some of the most educated people you'll meet are southern. I actually went to college to be an English teacher. 😆

LOTS of euphemisms, idioms, colorful metaphors and made-up words down here!

That’s true about context….

The only way I've ever heard cook up used is like "They cooked up a plan for robbing the bank."

Weird thing about this word is my Canadian aunt who lived in the UK for years uses it all the time. She's NEVER lived in the South.

@@billh03903 We use the word in Minnesota too, we're basically Canada in a lot if ways. Lol

I think that is just a specific iteration or usage of it. Really, cattywampus can be something that is off kilter, out of square, or warped in general. Say you make a table that leans a certain direction. That table is cattywampus. You make a building with two acute angles and two obtuse angles. That building is cattywampus. We also use it to describe just about anything that is irregular.

Catawampus always sounds funny to me the times I've heard it used. My father would say, Look at that man walking all catawampus. He must be drunk.

I agree...that was adorable!

…but in the South it is used as “I am completely\plumb tired.”

And, thingamajig!

Howdy neighbor. East central ky here

Definitely heard doohickey and thingamajig growing up in the Midwest. Not just a south thing. Although it might be a country thing…

What about a dillybopper? I haven't heard it used in a long time but heard it a lot as a kid. Used in a sentence it would go something like this: "Hand me that doohickey right there and that thingamajig beside it and then grab that other dillybopper"

@@bryanmcbee2795 I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that once haha

I've used it both ways in North Carolina

Thats what I said. Leveled, or tightly fit. Dune Buggy, or that something is not working correctly. Buggy can also be a type of small boat.

I use that meaning, but also have heard things like "I'm plumb tuckered out." for I'm exhausted.

I think the meanings are related. Straight/level as complete or finished -> definitive And/Or generalize from the phrase “Plumb level” to plumb whatever.

@ Kattie Garza, thank you! I was thinking that because I do woodworking, and putting two pieces of wood together have to be plumb. No gaps in between the two.

Maybe it's more common in other parts but being born and raised in South Alabama I've never heard the word druthers before this video.

@@corndogg78 That's funny. I was raised in Minnesota and used it all my life.

My grandmother, who was from Memphis, used to say “If I had my druthers…” all the time - sweet memories!

@@gigitheobald1486 my mom used that too

I was born and raised in Northern Alabama and I didn't have a clue lol

Or the old tongue twister - say "rubber baby buggy bumpers" repeatedly. :)

It can also be a gocart, a term for something not working correctly, or a type of boat.

Or buggy could be a horse drawn cart - The Amish still get around by horse and buggy

Or software the doesn't work correctly is also "buggy". I didn't mean to start a debate on the meanings of "buggy". Our hosts offered an answer that involved a transport for a baby. I was just offering that they were correct.

I cried I laughed so hard at your comment. I’m not even kidding. I’m from Alabama.. been here my entire life so I can only imagine how your southern friend felt after hearing that. Thank you for this 😂😂😂

Drawers means the same thing in the U.S. as to describe the skinny cabinet that pulls out, however in the US we pronounce is like "dro-er", and with a British accent, it would sound like underwear. It's one of the double meaning words, and the pronunciation could determine what you are trying to say for sure lol

Britches is used over seas as well. But I agree, no one in the states really uses it outside of the south.

"Britches" is simply the Southern pronunciation of "breeches," which was the traditional English-language term used for the short-legged article of clothing that covers the lower part of a man's body. It gave way to "pants" in the U.S. and "trousers" in the U.K. over two hundred years ago when the style changed away from high stockings and short, tight lower-body clothing for men (like you see in old pictures of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, etc. -- those guys all wore breeches), but it still exists in the South in the form of "britches." The reason why "drawers" could be either cabinetry or an article of clothing is because they are nouns formed from the same verb: "draw", as in "to pull towards oneself." We still use that verb when we describe how a storyteller draws us in, or how a gunfighter pulls his pistol up and out of its holster towards his upper body when preparing to fire it. You pull out a drawer towards yourself in order to take out a pair of drawers you'd kept in it, and you then pull up the drawers over your legs towards the rest of your body. "Commode" was borrowed from French into English in the seventeenth century. English settlers in the U.S. brought the term with them, and it has survived in American English while dying out in British English. That's true of a significant portion of our vocabulary. American English often preserves older words and meanings that have since died out in the mother country. The classic example is the word "mad". When Shakespeare used the term in his plays it meant "angry". "Mad" is still a synonym for "angry" in American English, but in British English the meaning changed hundreds of years ago, so "mad" now means "insane" in the U.K. Oddly enough, since insane asylums were British inventions, the term "madhouse", which obviously incorporates the modern British meaning of "mad", became common in the U.S. even though over here in the former colonies the primary meaning of "mad" is still "angry".

@@gregsager2062 Great insight. I feel like I hear people use both definitions of mad in the US. Maybe it depends on the circles

​@@gregsager2062 Thanks for your info. I find word study to be quite fascinating! A sidenote: A commode was actually a piece of furniture used by the french to hold their chamber pot. With the advent of indoor plumbing the term transferred to the stationary 'chamber pot' also known as a toilet. A side table with a cabinet is also still known as a commode.

They also use cactus fruit for jelly. Safeway here in Washington state has a Cactus fruit sorbet.

My brother in Phoenix, Arizona sent me some cactus jelly...and I have to admit I think it is my favorite kind of jelly. Everyone should try it at least once.

You can buy cactus to eat out of the jar

Cactus fruit can make jelly, tea, candy syrup, juice, and be eaten plain. Cactus pads are also tasty

Mudding is fun !!!

That’s where I thought it might go with this. I guess I was also thinking muggy as in humid.

We use cattywampus here in Washington state.

😂👍

"Plumb" is actually a real word and not just a colloquialism and they were onto it when they were speculating about plumbers. The root is the Latin word for the metal lead: plumbum. In Roman times pipes were made of lead so the people who worked with them resulted in the English "plumber". But also the lead weight used to measure the depth of water is a "plumb" and thus the phrase "to plumb the depths" of something.

And the term comes from the word "commodious" which means "convenient." I suppose it would be more convenient than going to the outhouse every time.

"I'm so poor, I dont have a pot to piss in."

@@Peg__ Or a window to throw it out of.

As a Brit in my 40s I have always known what a commode is.

Can confirm, druthers isn't in use in Ohio. Never heard it around the Dayton area.

I’ve actually heard it a bit on the east coast.

There's an old song with it in it...goes something like "If I had my druthers, I'd druther had my druthers, than anything else I know..."

I am from NY and my parents used the word "druthers" and now I do. 😁

Where do people say druthers? Not in the south

Hopping John is a specific type of black eyed pea I was told was from north or south carolina. Superstition said it signified luck or wealth, though greens at new years usually signify currency

I'm 44 & grewup in rural southern NJ & can categorically say except for Hoppin John, washateria, commode for physical toilet as it was used to describe the raised medical toilet seat device that either hovered over the toilet or near medical bed & had a removable bed-pan underneath, & buggy was never shopping cart rather baby buggy or Amish horse buggy, the rest of these words were & are in use in rural southern NJ, southeastern PA, northern DE.

I’m from NC and have never heard of druthers

Now, since Yellowstone, it's take you to the train station. 😁

I've heard that before! Except in Spanish from my parents, "Voy a llevarte afuera!" Or basically, "I'm gonna take you outside!" Also a euphemism for punishing someone for bad behavior. ^^'

"Take you out to the woodshed" brings back some childhood memories mostly associated with someone from my school calling my parents to complain about my rowdy behavior at school. But my dad and my uncle would say that as "We are gonna go 'round by Lars house (the woodshed).

Yes, but those are referred to as fixins. It's always plural. Fixins usually describes side dishes. "We had meatloaf with all the fixins." Fixin is always synonymous with about to.

I think they classed up the real term. I think they really meant “finna”

No, "fixin" and "fixins" are two completely separate things. And "fixins" doesn't mean extra ingredients. It means full-on side dishes.

@@brandonmajors3007 no. That's a more recent adaptation.most people over 25 don't say finna

That's a fact

Stop BS'ing. You didn't know at least 1 of these words along with the rest of us. They came from different regions all over the South.

No we actually know what these word mean 😂 what are you talking about?

Simple to you but i bet you would sound just as silly with words they find "simple" and use everyday.

@@eandg330 Yep, no doubt. Which is why I don't go on RU-vid. Presumably they are trying to entertain us. I was entertained.

A baby buggy is what some refer to as a Pram. My mom.jsd baby buggy's. They are larger than strollers. Look like a small mattress with walls, a hood ,and four wheels. I see a lot of buggies on shows like Call The Midwife. I remember when woman stayed home to raise kids. Baby buggies we're common. You could walk to stores, library ,schools ,Drs, etc. Set bags of groceries ,diaper bags ,other children on the buggy. I saw those used a lot when most households only had one car ,that the man drove to work. I saw strollers come along when more women drove,had own cars ,worked outside the home. Strollers we're meant for one child sitting in the seat ,( unless a double stroller,). Much ,much smaller than a ( baby buggy) or pram.I can't imagine it being easy to fold up a buggy and put in trunk of car to go with you, but strollers you could.. I find it interesting that in you depts. ,you can find you baby doll buggies AND toy baby doll strollers.. Even my grandchildren, daughter, and nieces had both to play with as children. I love buggies ( baby buggies) . The actual bed of the buggy is much higher up,off the ground ,while stroller seats are closer to the ground. You can still buy buggies for your baby is as well as strollers ,but they aren't available in all big box stores. In baby stores ,( sell only items for babies , some even year old to three yrs old ) you can find both or at least order a buggy if only strollers shown in the store. As for all the Southern words ..I'm from Ohio. Right on the shore of Lake Erie. Grew up around lots of immigrants,including my father ,my maternal grandmother ,etc. Yet I knew all those Southern words. Some everyone I know used. Also in other places that I lived with my Sir Force husband ( Calif., Upper Peninsula of Michigan ( The U. P. ). Some I learned by reading constantly as a child ,teen. I learned what hoe cakes, Johnny cakes ,etc. we're from books like ,the Little House on the Prairie Series. So many of the words I'd heard ,and used all my life, starting with as a child in Ohio. I wonder if that is because so many Southerners came up North to the Midwest (.Ohio) when factories were opening everywhere in Cleveland, Youngstown, areas outside of Columbus ,etc.I assume the Southern slang was heard by those in other states ,and other people picked it up. Druthers was a common one in Ohio. Northern Ohio.( Right by Lake Erie). Piddling was normal for various meanings. Piddling around,meant doing nothing exactly constructive ,just messing around. Parents would say, for example, ton their children...quit piddling around. Go mow the lawn already, like you were told to! Also heard it s few times referring to a young baby ,child in diapers...So and so just piddled, could you please change her? Every Southern word that was mentioned ,I remember using ,or hearing someone use . Several had more than one meaning, so the sentence it was used in told you which meaning was being used . Catawumper was only word I never used but I assumed it close to another word,that had Cats for first part of word ,not wumper for second part ,but basically meant same thing. All of a sudden ,I can't remember second part of the word I was just writing about 😂. Catawallin ,maybe ? I'll.prob remember as soon as I hit SEND! I loved watching the three British people trying to breakdown the words ,to figure the meanings out. It was very interesting to see how thier minds tried to figure it out. Made sense ,except many of these words ,you couldn't try something logical to get the meaning. I'm sure I'd have as much trouble with British slang. I do have one question from.thede delightful British subjects. I watch a few British Shows on TV. One has to do with moving from the city to looking for a new home in the country. Two.others have to do with surprising very good,kind people who spend thier lives helping out others ,through various difficulties. The surprise is to totally redo a few rooms. One show it's done in 60 mins. ( 60 MIN. MAKEOVER). Another ,it was accomplished over a couple to a few days. In each tv show ,I noticed they used the word HOMELY ,to mean something was very homey feeling. On the US ,homely has an entirely diff. meaning. It means an unattractive person. I'm the U.zk. ,it seemed to have positive connotations ,all used to describe a room ,a house as being very comfy ,good looking , space. Totally different from.our meaning of the word.

That is the actual American English definition of the word "plumb". "Plumb" as in "completely" or "exactly" is more of a slang and is common in the South.

I'm a plumber and use them all of the time.

My father taught me when he built furniture. He would work a piece and I'd hold the level tool until the bubble was plumb.

Came here to say this lol. I'm from San Antonio TX and a pickled cactus (called nopalitos) and egg taco with a corn tortilla is on a lot of taco shop menus. I like adding chorizo ;).

Cactus jam

I'm from the South and understand exactly what the "lower 48" refers to. While that term may have originated in Alaska it has long since spread to my part of the South Now if I could just get people to understand that going to "LA" means Lower Alabama.

@@genekillingsworth8994 Too funny! Thank you for the smiles way up here in the frozen tundra.

Everybody understands lower 48. I don’t personally use it because it ignores Hawaii and therefore doesn’t make any sense. I prefer the contiguous 48.

I am from PA, I am familiar with( and live in)" the lower 48". I agree with all you say. We all sort of develop according to our conditions and environment. I watch a TV show called "Last Stop Garage" it is set in Alaska. They seem to know how to fix ALL things mechanical, and sound like Canadiens. They remind me of Farmers. They do whatever need be done to get the job done. Resourceful and resilient and place a high importance on friends, family and neighbors, and are willing to help whoever needs help...that is my impression. ...Do you know Maurice Minnefield?

Hey! Ima Yu'pik. That is the white man spelling. Again, but in my mom's tongue, 'Yu'piaq'. The q at the end has a guttural back of the throat sound. It means 'real people '.

A yankee is someone from the north visiting a damned yankee stayed