If this ain't New York, then where am I?

For you New Yorkers out there, welcome. I hope my blog name hasn't offended you. Southerners do anything in their power to keep from offending someone. I chose the name because it just fit. This blog is about being southern, southernisms, and the like. Why? Because that is who I am.

I had to use "ain't." I just had to! It just wouldn't be the same without it. And, yes it is a word. It is in the dictionary. Of course, I don't use all of the words in the dictionary. And, even though I am southern, I don't always use ain't. Some of us down here do use proper English in the proper settings, you know. Like maybe when you are in New York.

But, honey, this ain't New York.

So where am I? Well, right now, as you can guess, I am on the computer. Otherwise, where I am doesn't matter all that much. I can tell you that the price of gas is way too much, we get cable TV, and there is a Wal-Mart around the corner. That narrows it down to about, oh, umpteen dozen towns.

What is umpteen dozen? In southernism, umpteen dozen is a lot, a whole lot. Like when you tell your child to go to bed over and over until it is almost tomorrow, you would say to him, "Go back to bed! I have told you for the umpteen dozenth time!" Or when you go to a church picnic and there is that one person who always eats like they have never had fried chicken before, you would say, "She ate umpteen dozen pieces of chicken!"

Now, you won't find umpteen dozen in the dictionary. You won't see it in The New York Times, or even in The Atlanta Constitution. But you may see it here on occasion. So, remember this vocabulary lesson. The next time I use a word or phrase that seems odd, it is probably a southernism. I will explain it to you in a southern drawl that you can't really hear. And it will take me forever and a day to do it. (there goes another one) That's just how we southerners are- detailed, wordy, lengthy, with lots of run on sentences.

Cause, this ain't New York.