[fidelis]

One of my interests has always been word and phrase origins. I've always wondered about a few of these ones myself.

[CodeJockey]

In the short rows.

Those who have picked bright leaf tobacco will know that one.

[ladyjane]

Not sure the writer got some of these explanations correct.For example, slower than molasses in January doesn’t necessarily refer to someone’s intelligence or physical prowess. And waiting till the cows get home isn’t waiting for lost cows. Cows don’t come home till dusk when they need to be milked. This person never lived on a farm, northern or southern.

[rexthecat]

"...A bit like grandma's nightgown, it covers everything"

[fella]

What’s “$#it fire and save the matches” mean?
Or
So dumb he couldn’t pour *iss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel”

Both from Texas.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I bought a pig in a poke.

[Montana Confederate]

“Ya’ll goin’ to the doin’s at the church tonight?” (”Doings” could be anything from a revival meeting to a softball game.)

“Dadblame outfit, makes me so mad.”

“Sh*t fire.” (for years my brother and I wondered if Grandpa was saying “fire” or “far”.)

“Lord have mercy, they’ve got forty-eleven kids runnin’ ‘round there.”

Just a few I remember from growing up south of the Mason Dixon line in the sixties.

[Track9]

Bump for later

[E. Pluribus Unum]

They forgot “Bless your heart.”

[Verginius Rufus]

My Dad’s version of #3 was “slower than molasses in January.” He was not a Southerner.

[left that other site]

Well, Bless Your heart.

[CodeJockey]

Hotter than a three ball tomcat.

(Dual meaning. Horney dude or extreme high tempreature)

[nesnah]

“You’re uglier than a mud fence.”

“You’re so ugly, you’d make a freight train take a dirt road.”

[Magnum44]

[Leep]

The good Lord willing..I’ll read all of the posts.

[TTFlyer]

Tighter than Dick’s hat band.

I’m so mad I could bite a Toad-Frog.

I’m about to bust a pee.

That thing couldn’t pull a greasy string out of a cat’s a**.

[Churchillspirit]

Well how nice!

[Leep]

I may be white boy, but I’m not stupid

Said by a stupid corrupt perverted old fool from Delaware.

[rlmorel]

I remember one of my Southern shipmates, when asked why something obvious didn’t happen and he said:

“If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t whomp its ass every time it jumped!”

[rlmorel]

LOL, “I was fixin’ my car, and heard the sound of a cow pissing on a flat rock!”

[FLT-bird]

“Rode hard and put up wet”. It comes from the days of riding horses. You were supposed to brush the horse after riding to make sure it’s hair didn’t become tangled and matted which made the horse look bedraggled. What you say to someone who looks rough, maybe dirty, maybe hung over.

“Cut” the lights out instead of turn the lights out.

“Fixin’ to” as in preparing to.

“Sitting in the catbird seat” in an advantageous position such that you’d have to screw up not to win.

“What you know good?” = “how are you doing?”