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Heaton: 35 Southern Expressions for Anger
Getting a Southerner to show anger is simply a matter of breaking through the boundary of good manners to get to the zone where duels were once fought.
Politics and religion are poor topics of discussion of course. All the same, outsiders are often surprised to learn that Southerners have a “live and let live” philosophy. Uneducated observations on the culture of the South may get you a stern look. However, if you’re trying to get under a Southerners’ skin, the fastest way is to insult one’s family or the Flag. Here are the sayings you might hear as you get closer to the dueling zone.
1. About to have a dying duck fit!
2. Dills my pickle!
3. Don’t let your bulldog mouth overload your hummingbird butt.
4. Don’t pee down my back and tell me it’s raining!
5. Don’t rush on my account!
6. Fit to be tied!
7. Fly off the handle.
8. Go sit in the truck!
9. He’s got his tail up.
10. Madder than a puffed toad.
11. I could chew up nails and spit out a barbed wire fence.
12. I have three speeds: on, off, and don’t push your luck.
13. I was as mad as a three-legged dog trying to bury a turd on an icy pond.
14. I’ll kill you and swear you died.
15. I’ll knock your teeth so far down your throat you’ll spit ’em out in single file.
16. I’m about to have a hissy fit.
17. I’m mad enough to drown puppies.
18. I’m so mad I could spit!
19. I’m going to jerk you bald! or I’m going to skin you alive!
20. Ill as a hornet!
21. I’m so mad I could just fall out of my pants.
22. If you don’t stop, I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody stump.
23. Mad as a box of frogs.
24. Mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees.
25. Madder than a boiled owl.
26. Madder than a Wampus Cat in a rainstorm.
27. Madder than a wet settin’ hen.
28. Madder than a pack of wild dogs on a three legged cat.
29. Madder than the snake that married the garden hose!
30. Makes my butt want to grind corn.
31. Madder than a wet panther.
32. Panties are in a wad.
33. She’s in a horn-tossing mood.
34. Stuck in my craw like hair on a biscuit.
35. You better give your heart to Jesus, because your butt is mine.
Tim Heaton is a HottyToddy.com contributor and can be reached at tim.h.heaton@gmail.com. His new book, “Bless Your Heart, You Freakin’ Idiot: Southern Sayings Translated” is available on Amazon as well as “Momma n’ Em Said: The Treasury of Southern Sayings.”
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Jonothan
December 11, 2015 at 8:08 am
The most important one, which any person born in the south is the most dangerous of all and means that you better turn an run now is: “Aww hell naw!”
Tim Heaton
December 11, 2015 at 10:48 am
Thanks Jonothan!
“Aww hell naw!” is coming up in the next couple of installments as a “Threat.”
Definitely a power word for RUN!
Kristie
April 20, 2018 at 6:19 pm
Lifelong Georgia resident. Country as hell, maybe heard 3 of these.
We can certainly turn a phrase, but whoever wrote this doesn’t speak Southern.
Sorry darlin’, that’s a hot mess… A true Southerner, is slicker than owl shit.
Put that in your next list, we actually say that.
Did Sara Huckabee Sanders give you this list?
SMDH.
Sharon young
August 2, 2018 at 4:48 pm
Have you ever heard the expression split tail little girl. My mother told me it means young and dumb. Thought that was a good one for being angered by another woman.
claire
December 19, 2024 at 5:42 pm
Don’t get me mad or I’ll snatch the bald off your head.
I could chew up a tree and spit out toothpicks!
That just burns my biscuits. (my Georgian mom said this often, like madder than a wet hen, and fit to be tied & don’t get your panties in a wad *also* knickers in a knot – from my brother)
I’m so mad I could wrassle a gator and win
all of these I’ve heard from one Southerner or another, related or not, from the 1980’s to the 1950’s.