Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Feb. 6, 2012
|
More advice from Mr. Mannerly Man It is time for another installment of Answers from Mr. Mannerly Man, who has taken the time to personally install answers to your questions about manners, etiquette, and what to do with that piece of toilet paper hanging from your belt. Here’s a question which we received from Mr. Lantz Philpot from Forney: Q: How do I tell my Uncle Bezel that he don’t know what he’s talking about without hurting his feelings? A: In order to answer that question, we will need more information, including an explanation of your Uncle Bezel’s name. Q: Okay then. Bezel is one of Daddy’s brothers and sisters which was all borned to Meemaw and named while she was going through her watch phase. I think timing them contractions got watches and watch parts on her brain. There was also Daddy, who was Hamilton, and then Uncle Walt Ham, Aunt Crystal, Uncle Elgin, Aunt Jewel, Uncle Ben Russ, Uncle Long Gene, Uncle Fob and Aunt Rose. A: Rose? Q: She was the last and by then Meemaw had run out of watch names. Second Hand Rose was all she could come up with. So anyhow last week Phyllis and me we went over to see Uncle Bezel and Aunt Neldy and he said as how they couldn’t get no TV reception due to sunspots. He said they was messing up his satellite out back and always made his TV go out right in the middle of Wheel of Fortune so he couldn’t never see Vanna move her vowels. I told him I didn’t think it was sunspots because Phyllis she got them after we went to Florida last year and was speckled all over and the skin doctor he said they could burn ‘em off but after he done a large patch on her face she was left with big white spots ruther than the little brown ones and she said she’d ruther keep what she had thank you very much. And besides I told Uncle Bezel that our TV was still working just fine irregardless of Phyllis’s skin condition. We did have a cat once, name of Blinky, who had a bad skin condition and when he would walk in front of the TV there would sparks shoot through the air and all three stations would go out but that was back when we only had our Zenith with them rabbit ears and Blinky also had very long hair which probly had more to do with it than his bald spots and them little dried pieces of kitty litter neither of which was actual sunspots and I had just started to tell Uncle Bezel about what Aunt Neldy really had which wasn’t sunspots but only liver spots anyhow and then he got all flusterated and ast me what I was talking about anyhow and was all of Hamilton’s childring peculiar like me and since I had brung it up Neldy didn’t have no sunspots nor liver spots, she had moles, and only four of them which oughtn’t to have nothing to do with their TV reception and so I told him he could check that out by making her leave the room during Wheel of Fortune and he said that wouldn’t help because the TV screen was only a 36 incher and the satellite out back was fourteen foot across and could pick up signals from Hong Kong back before the government passed all them Fannie Mae regulations and if it could pick up Hong Kong all the way on the other side of the earth then for sure it could pick up Neldy on the back porch and I told him he might ort to get him a wire brush and scrub that satellite for sunspots just to make sure and if that didn’t help it might take a hard drive to fix it and he said I knowed good and well his old Pinto had a bad radiator and wouldn’t make it to Piedmont to say nothing of Atlanta or Chattanooga. And I told him how Daddy used to pour clabbered buttermilk into his radiators to stop up the leaks and once he couldn’t find none and had to make do with some cottage cheese which had went bad and plugged his system up on the way to Rainsville and cost him two hundred dollars to get a partial fix from them two Finster boys who had already been in jail for selling bad moonshine and once they stole a Guernsey milk cow and–” A: STOP! I need an aspirin. Q: I thought you said you needed more information before you could answer my question. A: I did. But I was only speaking generally, and you got into specifics. My answer would be that there is no possible way that you could tell your Uncle Bezel, or any of the other timepieces in your family, for that matter, that they didn’t know what THEY were talking about. Instead, you might just want to talk about the weather and how we sure needed it if it was raining, or even if it wasn’t, and then tell Bezel and Neldy goodbye. Or as we put it in the South, “Y’all just come and go with us.” Which brings us to a new feature this week: Where did that Mannerly Southernism come from? • Y’ALL JUST COME AND GO WITH US! This comment originated in the 1800s as simply “Come and go with us.” and elderly relatives often took their visitors up on their offer and hobbled outside and clambered into the buggy. I say hobbled because in those bygone days many elderly relatives had spare parts which they left lying around the house while they were at home. Parts like wooden legs and glass eyes and hairpieces and false teeth, etc. And since a grandmother hopping around on one leg, with no teeth, no hair, and an old dead eye socket tended to frighten the children, the comment was soon expanded to “Y’all just come and go with us” with “Y’all” indicating grandmother and her various artificial body parts. When you wish to include other family members and their body parts in the invitation, it is proper to say “WHY DON’T ALL Y’ALL JUST COME AND GO WITH US!” • WELL, BUTTER MY BUTT AND CALL ME A BISCUIT. We believe that this originated as part of a Mississippi State fraternity initiation in the late 1890s. • The proper use of “made.” CORRECT: We was right proud of how after all them years of schooling Ricky Lee finally made a dentist. INCORRECT: We was right proud of how after all them years of schooling Ricky Lee finally made a birdhouse. WARNING: Do not attempt to use these Mannerly Southern phrases without proper training. You could put an eye out. |