Our members are from all over the U.S., but I find our southern members the most interesting in terms of language patterns. Tonight I was talking to a few from Mississippi. One of them was about to tell a story and said, "I was fixin' to say..." We do not say that in the midwest. Do others ever use that phrase?

We said it in Kansas.

Interesting, Tinman. I consider Kansas to be in the midwest and not the south.

If we said that in Chicago, people would think we're pretending to have a southern accent.

In Billy Bob Thornton's breakout movie, "Slingblade," the main character, a mentally retarded, homicidal maniac lawnmower mechanic (Damned type casting!) Says, "Karl, I'm a-fixin' to kill you." The movie was set in arkansas, where that kind of language is common.

Geoff the lawnmower mechanic

I found this site about "speaking southern." There are a lot of words there that I've not heard of, like "dreckly," meaning "soon."

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like "dreckly," meaning "soon."

Surely that's just their pronunciation of "directly"?

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Interesting, Tinman. I consider Kansas to be in the midwest and not the south.

If we said that in Chicago, people would think we're pretending to have a southern accent.

Kansas is part of the lower Midwest. My dad, from southeast Kansas, and my mother, from Louisiana, probably had some influence on my vocabulary and pronunciations, as well as the fact that my first 7 1/2 years were spent in Kansas, about 68 miles north of Arkansas.

That makes sense, Tinman. And, arnie, you are right, I am sure. I was wondering if it was just an accent, but I didn't think of "directly."