Way back when, I said I’d teach y’all how to speak Southern. Folks, welcome to our first vocabulary words in Speaking Southern 101. Today, this very brief exercise is what I call Survival Skills Training in the South.
Your first word, my good folk, is finny. You can also say fenna (pronounced with a short ‘e’ sound; the ‘a’ is pronounced ‘uh’). If you wanna use a more proper way of saying it, say fixing to.
Now, I’m gonna use finny in a sentence for you. Pay close attention.
“I’m finny go to the store now.”
Of course you can also say, “I’m fenna,” which is a lackadaisical way of saying the same thing. You don’t have to really move your mouth much to say fenna. If you say, “fixing to,” you will be looked upon as the more proper southerner, even though you ain’t “fixing to” fix shit. By no means will you say, “I’m getting ready to go to the store,” ’cause that defeats the whole purpose of enrolling in this course. You don’t want that, as this is a total immersion program. Well, at least that was the initial plan before I ended up over here in the desert. I’m gonna hook up this little class as best I can from over here anyhow. Right now, we’re experiencing some winds from a sandstorm, which I may be able to show you one of these days.
Anyhow. Your second southern term is sammich.
Use both words in a sentence to say, “I’m finny tear into this sammich ’cause I’m what? You got it. Hongry!
That’s a wrap on this session, folks. I don’t wanna put too much on y’all at once, so we shall stop here and your homework is to have oral practice with your family and friends. At every opportunity, when you’re preparing to perform a task, say finny or fenna. Below is your flashcard to help you with your home assignment. I’m so very, very sorry I don’t have an audio for you to follow along. I’m currently in the process of writing a grant, which is awfully hard to come by given the state of the economy, and trying to acquire some of that Race to the Top money that the U.S. Education Secretary, Arnie Duncan, got me down here competing for. Maybe by the end of the year, you folk will be able to correspond to him by letter using your newly acquired language skills to pose particular questions and demands. Or…Hmmm…Maybe I can get a quick loan from China.
When I was coming up, I had a fair share of egg salad sammiches. My research says John Montagu created egg salad but he never made no sammich of this dish. Since we’ve seen how creative southern folk can be through oral language, I reckon it was southern folk who got the bright idea to spread this concoction on bread ’cause we will eat all sorta sammiches down here, to include, ketchup sammiches and it ain’t no thang to throw some peanut butter with sliced bananas between some bread. Okay? Here’s a recipe that you may enjoy for making your very own egg salad sammich. Happy eating, folks.
This recipe is for a one egg sandwich. If you have more eggs and more people to feed, just double, triple, etc. the recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 hard boiled egg (large), peeled and chopped
- 1-2 Tbsp mayonnaise (to taste)
- 2 Tbsp chopped celery
- 1 Tbsp chopped green onion
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
- 1 leaf of lettuce or sprinkles of fresh spinach
- 2 slices dark rye bread, toasted
Method
1 First off, you’re gonna mash up the chopped egg a bit with a fork. Next, I want you to mix together the chopped hard-boiled egg, mayonnaise, celery and onion. Sprinkle You some salt and pepper and curry powder to taste.. Got that? Then, mix it all up with a spoon.
2 Okay, now toast your bread slices. Put you a layer of lettuce on one slice of toasted bread, spread the egg mixture on top of the lettuce, put another slice of toasted bread on top. Got that?
3 Now, loosen your pants up and bite into that sammich real big.
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