No Bones about It!

Overhearing a conversation recently, the speaker made this remark. “That’s the God’s truth and there’s ‘no bones about it’....
Of course, it was a ‘Southerner‘ speaking and being a southerner myself; I got the point of the conversation.
But would a ‘outsider’?
I’m not sure. The reason why is because many of our cultural colloquial remarks are founded in our long-ago southern history and may relate to events that we now know nothing about. We say them because we have heard them for years and years from our ‘elders’....some we know the origin and others we haven’t a clue.
I often hear our families beautiful 19 year old, ultra Barbie look, Brittney, exclaims, “If that don’t beat all!”
Her glamorous looks are out of character with her speech ....except in the ‘real’ antebellum South.
She has absorbed so many of her Mom, Grandma’s and “dear Granny’s” sayings that I’m not sure she is even aware how ‘unique’ her vocabulary has become.
Ask me about it and I will say, ‘I’m delighted!”
For you see many years ago in Nuremberg, Germany where my husband was stationed with the 1st Bn., 22nd Field Artillery, a very wise woman named, Ginger, gave me some personal advice about my ’accent’.
Ginger declared that if we changed everything about ourselves in our usage of cultural expression in order to ‘be like everyone else’.....then we would all sound the same and it is in this ‘differences’ that we are interesting and unique as individuals and as a society.
This is not to give a license to ‘poor grammar’ but allows the use of colloquial terms along with ‘proper’ speech.
That settled it for me once and for all.
Now I’m delighted to hear the revival of Southern phrases and expressions and even have started the documentation of some of these expressions for our family. Spelling them is another thing altogether!

So I say to you of any culture....be proud of your unique heritage and as far as expressing your culture in your speech....as one of my Southern friends, Patsy, always says.....”suit yourself.”

Yes, Southern life is to be continued!