Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Things They Say in the Wiregrass

Somebody around here should make a collection of all the colorful oldtime names, words, and expressions handed down and still in use in the Wiregrass area.

Why, it could be made into a book! Call it “Wiregrass Words and Sayings.” Or, something like “Ways of Talk in the Piney Woods.”

Whatever the title chosen, readers should be interested in a book that would define just how much and how far a “grunt” is, tell what it means to be “caught out,” and even explain how to “get up with” a person.

To enhance this collection of sayings, a bit of local history could and should be woven into it.

Recently an oldtimer who lives a few miles south of Enterprise mentioned in passing that the low ridges of hills and hammocks on which Fort Rucker is spread was once known as “Oakey Woods.” This, because oak trees grew here in abundance.

Pioneer settlers coming into the area just west of what is now Fort Rucker terrain found a vast forest of pine trees. So they called it “The Piney Woods.” This quiet green land of the pines was said to be unusual in that it had no undergrowth of bushes, vines and stubble. Instead, there was tall, lush grass, waving in the wind, as far as the eye could see.

But this grass in the Piney Woods was not the “wire-grass” from which the whole area became known as “The Wiregrass.” That grass is dark green, stiff, and wire-like.

Now, the above three paragraphs is just “a grunt” of local history -- a small amount.

Once, soon after we adopted the Wiregrass as home, I was in a local hairdresser’s shop for a haircut. When I asked the operator to please just trim my hair a bit, she said, “Sure, I’ll just take off a ‘grunt.”’

Later, I learned that a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile is “a grunt down the road.”

Newcomers soon pick up these south Alabama words and phrases, because, they can be used to express exact shades of meaning. Take “caught out.” To be “caught out” means to be unprepared for guests. Especially, not to have fancy food in the house to serve when unexpected company arrives.

Many distinctive expressions used locally and throughout the South have to do with feelings and emotions, and character. In a way, each one is a miniature parable.

Let’s suppose we know a man named Al who has an uncle called Old Joe. To say that Old Joe is “crooked as a dog’s hind-leg” is to say that he is indeed dishonest, a rascal in fact. If it is hard to get him to “hit a lick” of work, he is lazy. If he is “moon-eyed,” he is not very intelligent.

If Old Joe “never killed many snakes,” he has not accomplished much for the good of his home community. If Joe is “tough as a pine knot,” he is hardy, sturdy. And, if he has “a right smart bit” of money, he is well off, perhaps rich.

But if Al were to say “Old Uncle Joe is a sight,” that would mean he is an amusing person who jokes and kids. And if Joe’s wife Sally is “plumb foolish over him,” she loves him very much.

In the event that Aunt Sally is a talkative person, her neighbors may say that she “would talk the horns off a billygoat,” or, that “her tongue goes like a clapper in a cowbell.” They might even call her “Motor-mouth Sal.”

Let’s imagine that the neighbors want to compliment Aunt Sally on her kindness. They would say, “She’s a good hand to visit the sick,” or “a good hand to help out in time of trouble.”

The phrase “to get up with” means to get in touch with or to contact.

If Al had tried for some time to telephone his Uncle Joe and Aunt Sally and then met them by chance on the street, he would declare, “You two are the hardest folks to get up with I ever saw!”

Then, if Al wanted his relatives to get in his automobile and ride home with him, he would say, “Come on, ya’ll get ‘on’ my car and go home with me!”

There seems no end to the sayings and phrases that could be included in this proposed Wiregrass book. Just last week I heard a new one. It was: “It’s time to lick the log.”

Now if any Hedgehopper reader knows what that could possibly mean, send me word. I’ll slip it into the folder where I keep notes on Al, Old Joe, Aunt Sally and the things they say in the Wiregrass.

Why, there’s a folksy title for the book! “Things They Say in the Wiregrass!”

Published April 1980. Click your browser’s ‘Back’ key to return.