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 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.