A Guide for Folks New to the South, Part 3

It's time to discuss the proper use of the term "y'all," it is short for "you all." In other words we are addressing two more people when we use the word "y'all." While I'm writing this article, If I needed to address you the public, I would write "y'all," because I'm assuming (okay hoping) that a bunch of people will be reading it. If I were writing to my friend that lives alone, I would write "you." I hope editors are reading this and taking note, because I get real irritated when a character is talking to one person and uses the word "y'all." I slam that sucker shut and get another one to read. If you want to hear a room full of Southerners snigger and snort, then play a movie that makes this mistake.

In the South, we call our parents, mama and daddy. It's what we do. And no amount of grief from outsiders is going to change that. To our Southern ears, addressing our parents as mother and father sounds cold, unfeeling and makes us feel that the speaker doesn't really care for their parents. Using the words mother and father is putting a barrier between parent and child. Me, I love my mama and that's why I call her mama. Same goes for my daddy, I loved him. He was my daddy not just a father. Now mom, pop, and dad are okay, but it just isn't as affectionate as mama and daddy. We are divided in what we call our Grandparents. Some of the common names for grandmothers are: Granny, Gran, Big Mama, Meemaw, or Maw. I can't think of that many for grandfathers, just Grandpa, Big Daddy, or Papaw.