Texas population map. Image via Wikipedia

As a Texan with roots in East Texas, I am well aware that many Texas expressions originate in other parts of the South. Some of our sayings are used elsewhere in America, too.

Some of those sayings we use the same way. Others we have our own slightly different meaning for.

For example, awhile back I wrote about getting the hell out of Dodge, which is generally used (in other places) to mean quickly leaving a place where you are unwelcome or that you find very unpleasant. Around Houston, at least, we use it to mean getting away on a vacation or even just getting out of the office for awhile.

Recently I wrote about an old Texas expression my grandmother used to use that I had not heard in a long time, “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.” I was not sure whether it was a general  Southern expression, and I didn’t bother to look it up, but I wondered.

So I was startled to see that good old Texas expression in a brand new novel I read recently. It was not used quite right—which may have been caused by editing by some Yankee editor—but there it was, big as Dallas.

Uh-oh! Maybe it was a general term that everyone knew about? So I looked in the back of the book and read the author’s bio. Sure enough, the author is a Texan.

Whew, what a relief! Talk like a Texan is still all Texas, all the time.

Image via Wikipedia

“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” is one of those old-fashioned Texas expressions that is hard to define for people today, because the context has changed so much. It is still a useful expression, though, and an interesting one, so I will try.

Before the word cool came to mean hip, or up to date, or whatever, it was used in a couple of different ways in social situations. Cool could mean standoffish and unwelcoming, as in “Expecting a warm welcome, the visitors were greeted coolly.” (Think of “lukewarm enthusiasm” or worse.)

Or cool could mean calm, unfazed, not angry. For example, “While Bubba was red-faced, screaming and yelling and stomping his boots on the porch, Lila remained cool and just stared at him.”

The opposite of cool in the first sense is warm, as in receiving a warm hug. In the second sense of the word cool, the opposite is hot, like Bubba who is clearly burned up about something. Obviously butter would melt pretty fast in his mouth!

So if Lila replies to Bubba in that cool, calm manner, showing no evidence of anger or upset, anyone watching might say, “She answered him so sweetly, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

What makes this expression a little hard to explain is that there is another factor involved. When my grandmother used this expression, it was generally not a compliment.

That is to say, maybe Lila had done something awful, and here she was acting so cool and innocent, as if the resulting uproar had nothing to do with her. Imagine if your sister took your car without permission, wrecked it, and then sailed into your house, acting completely innocent, as if nothing had happened—even though she knew you had every right to be mad.

Or maybe Lila had said something that sounded sweet and innocent (so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth) that she knew was guaranteed to send Bubba into an apoplectic fit. You see sometimes there is an element of nerve and gall about the manner described by “butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

Frankly I am not sure I ever heard that expression used to describe a man. That’s not because men do not exhibit the same kind of behavior. It’s probably because this expression dates from a time when sexism was socially approved and encouraged.

So I hope that explains it. Just in case you run into a situation where it fits.

And I know eventually you will, wherever you are.

Image by telwink via Flickr

Texans and others sometimes forget how much the way we talk is shaped by our rural roots. To hear us talk, you might sometimes get the impression that most of us live on ranches or farms, but that is no longer true.

The truth is lots of us live in cities and always have: Houston (fourth largest in the nation), the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso. Many of us, even in small towns, live in apartments. And for whatever reason, sometimes we need to find a new one.

Knowing how we Texans love our cars, and seeing how many, many apartment complexes there are lining the main streets in our urban areas, you might think that finding a new place to live would be easy: Just drive into a likely looking apartment complex and sign up.

But, of course, it is seldom that easy. Maybe you have moved to a new town to take a new job, or to start college or graduate school. For whatever reason, you may not have time to drive around till you find the right place. So, you can always use an apartment locator.

Usually using an apartment locator is just a pleasant experience that saves you lots of time, gasoline, and boredom. Sometimes, though, the apartment locator is a colorful character who talks Texan.

The first time I ever used an apartment locator, I was right out of college. My old college suitemate wanted to share an apartment to save money. Neither of us lived in Houston yet, so she found us an apartment locator to save time.

As style-conscious young women, we naturally wanted to live in a cool-looking complex with all the bells and whistles (or clubs, swimming pools, tennis courts, and beautifully wooded grounds, but our budget was pretty limited. The locator helped us focus on finding a good apartment in a good location. And he contributed a colorful expression that I never forgot.

“You don’t live in Trees,” was his way of saying that the landscaping, private club, and other amenities were not as important as the quality of the apartment itself. It was a colorful Texas-style reminder to focus on what is important instead of getting carried away with superficial glamour.

“You don’t live in trees,” was great advice then, and it still is.

So whenever you are in danger of losing focus on what is important and being overly swayed by superficial features of apartments, cars, jobs—or anything—just remember, “You don’t live in trees.” And besides giving you a smile, it may help you focus on what is important.

It works for me. And now, I hope it works for you.

Image via Wikipedia The area shown in red is East Texas.

I’m fixin’ to tell you a little Texas secret: I was brought up not saying “fixin’ to.” My maternal grandfather came from a family of “preachers and teachers.” He brought my mother up to speak properly, grammatically and correctly. He was very strict.

We did not say “fixin’ to” at my house. In fact, I did not even have a Texas accent until I was 10 and decided to talk like my friends at school. Sad but true.

So when I went up to East Texas to go to college, it was a full four years before I found myself, one fine May day, telling someone I was “fixin’ to go class.” As we used to say in those days, I about swallowed my teeth.

In case you are unfamiliar with the phrase, “fixing to,” pronounced “fixin’ to,” is kind of interesting. It means “getting ready to” or “about to” do something.

I wonder if it is possibly a parallel usage to the Spanish “acaba de” which means exactly the same thing. At least that may be why the use of “fixin’ to” lingers here in Texas. It just sounds right to lots of Texans.

I’m not sure about anywhere else, though. But I’m fixin’ to find out.

Image via Wikipedia

Hosting and hostessing in Texas is a big, big thing. As the host or hostess you are completely responsible for the welfare and happiness of your guests for the duration. You do not leave people stranded even if it is a public meeting and you have the flu.

So the other night a sick friend asked me to lead a meeting for him. It is a regular meeting of a group of usually about 10 or 15 like-minded people at a nearby restaurant. It is mostly social, and I always go anyway.

I have hosted that meeting for him several times before, and it was no big deal. But this time it was different. It was a Stella Dallas party!

What’s that, you ask? Well, I’m fixin’ to tell you.

My paternal grandmother, Nana, and her sisters were addicted to soap operas. Apparently they started listening when the soaps first came on the radio, whenever that was.

To overhear a phone conversation between any two of those sisters, you would think they were talking about people they knew. “That Lisa! She is terrible! She does not deserve Bob.”

But no, they were not gossips; they were soap fans. And they all three lived in the same tiny Texas town, so they could indulge in soap character discussions without running up the phone bill.

By the time I came along the soaps were on TV, so if one of the sisters was forced to run an errand during an important episode, she would call another sister afterward to find out what happened. Because, after all, you could not follow TV soaps on the car radio.

Friday was the big day on the soaps. Everyone knew that the soaps just lallygagged all week, and the really good stuff always happened on Fridays. On Fridays the sisters would coordinate their schedules to make sure at least one of them would be home to report to the others.

So soaps were a big, big deal in my family, and at least one of them contributed to this Texas family’s lingo. It seems that way back in the 1930s or 1940s, on one of those old radio soap operas, there was a character named Stella Dallas.

According to Nana, the Stella Dallas character was very wealthy but did not have any friends. Stella had somehow come into a lot of money but did not fit in with the other rich people in town.

So when Stella Dallas gave a huge, lavish, expensive party and invited all the important people in town, no one came. No one at all.

Ever since then, if anyone ever gives a party and no one shows up, that’s what my family calls “a Stella Dallas party.”

Whatever you may call it, a Stella Dallas party is the absolute nightmare horror of any real Texas hostess. And wherever you are, here’s hoping that you never have one.

In my case, I decided that the no-show meeting was actually my friend’s Stella Dallas party, because nobody knew that I would be leading the meeting. That was never announced, thank goodness. (Now that’s just between you and me.)

Whew! That means my reputation as a Texas hostess is still unsullied. What a relief!

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Texans who work from can till cain’t and Texans who love outdoor activities know about dark-thirty. Sometimes we are glad, and sometimes we are sad when dark-thirty comes along.

“How late did y’all play last night?”

“It was about dark-thirty when we finally stopped. Travis liked to never let us quit. Man, I was hungry! It was way past time to go back to the house.”

“Speaking of shopping, on our trips to Europe we’re always just blowin’ and goin’. We never have time for buying trinkets to bring home,” said a man.

“Well, we were blowin’ and goin’ on this trip, for sure,” said the woman from the other couple.

In Texas English, blowin’ and goin’ means dashing around, all busy busy busy, almost without stopping to take a breath.

Strange as it seems, to say that someone has been just blowin’ and goin’ is generally considered a compliment. The implication is that they have been working hard and getting a lot done—even if what they achieved, as in this case, was apparently just having a really good time.

The first dog I ever had was a solid brown medium-size mutt with a black stripe down his back. I named him Tippy.

The name came from the first puppy I picked from his litter, a light brown and white spotted puppy with a white tip on his tail. The first Tippy got run over by a car before he was old enough to leave his mother, so Daddy picked another pup, but we still called him Tippy.

Tippy must have had a wide variety of ancestors. His mother appeared to be all or mostly leopard, a breed of hunting dog with gray fur and pale blue eyes. Sort of rare. 

None of the puppies looked like her, though, and none of them looked like any other particular breed. Daddy used to say that Tippy was “leopard and Heinz” (after the food brand Heinz, which used to claim to have “57 varieties”).

Tippy was a bold little pup. He did not like the boys who put the groceries in the car at the grocery store—or much of anyone else besides our family. When he grew up, he was a great watch dog.

Meanwhile, though, when he was little, he needed training. Although I was encouraged to play with him, Daddy had a saying that I used to hear a lot. “Don’t tease ‘im, you’ll make ‘im mean.”

Funny how these things stick with you. I use that expression now for dealing with certain people and organizations that you just can’t tease, or kid around with, or argue with. 

You have to be very careful with some people and groups about what you say and do—or they can turn on you like a snake. And they may have the power to make your life miserable in some way. They may be touchy relatives, or government bureaucrats, or….you fill in the blanks. I know you know what I mean.

But now maybe when you are dealing with one of these hard-to-deal-with types, you will remember what my Daddy used to say about raising puppies. It’s good advice, and nobody else will know why you’re smiling. It’ll be just between us, OK?

So whenever you are engaged in delicate negotiations with a person or group who seem like kind of an unpredictable force of nature, remember what Daddy used to say.

“Don’t tease ‘em, you’ll make ‘em mean.” And you’ll do just fine.

But we don’t always get to. So sometimes, if you hang around and listen, you might hear a statement something like this:

“Hell, yes, I enjoyed the party! We stayed almost till dawn. But then Travis dragged me out of bed at the crack of noon to go look at a deer lease. I thought I was gonna die and hoped it’d be soon.”

Clearly that was a really good party. And obviously the speaker had just a little bit too much fun. Hence the apparent hangover.

Maybe Travis was the designated driver the night before, but I doubt it. I imagine that Travis is one of those relentlessly cheerful morning people (the kind who never seem to be phased by any activity the night before).

Or else he is a really practiced partier (if you know what I mean) and also one of those dedicated hunters who never let anything interfere with getting their deer. 

Well, more power to him, but some of us need our sleep.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, Texans do tend to talk in metaphors. We love our colorful expressions.

When I was a little girl, if my grandmother and I were caught out somewhere without an umbrella, and I hesitated to run through the rain to get to the car, for example, she would say, “You’re not made out of sugar. You won’t melt.”

Or more often, just “Come on, you’re not made of sugar.” 

Years ago, I can remember going to a (well-attended) ballet class in the evening on the day that a hurricane had passed through town. We didn’t let the weather slow us down much in those days.

Nowadays, maybe because of three major hurricanes and a couple of other floods in the last ten years, attendance drops way off at evening events if it rains just a little bit. So now you see why I say Houstonians act like they are made of sugar.