I've long admired the Texas dialect, and have spent some effort collecting good examples. I thought about sending this around after the last GGF, but couldn't figure out a suitable audience. Since it came up again on the call this morning, I'll just send it here - and y'all (or all y'all, depending) can send it on if you wish. Fair warning: some of this might be considered marginally non-work-safe or politically incorrect in today's environment. So it goes :-) Best, chris Reprinted, without permission, from a 1983 S.F. Chronicle column titled "The Chronicle Whole Earth Catalog" edited by Stewart Brand and Joe Kane. (Thanks to my sister-in-law for loaning me this from her scrapbook.) "Texas Crude" by Ken Weaver Ken Weaver, 42, has been in the Air Force, played with the '60s rock band the Fugs and worked in the oil fields of Texas, his home state, where he gathered these jewels from Lone Star tongues. "I worked with geniuses in the oil fields," he says. "They didn't know anything about Chaucer, but Chaucer whould have loved them." He now studies Russian and linguistics at the University of Arizona. -- Joe Kane. ----------------- A Texican Lexicon ----------------- Graderblade. A face, pretty or otherwise. Crippled sick. Gravely, albeit psychosomatically, ill: "Hot damn, I'd love to he'p you boys load that hay, but I've been just about crippled sick here lately." In a hot New York minute. Immediately: equates to a nano-second, or that infinitesimal blink of time in New York between the instant the traffic light turns green and the 'ol boy behind you honks his horn. Roebuckers. Prosthetic dentures. Belt-buckle polisher. A slow dance tune: "Now here's a belt-buckle polisher, so all you lovers can dance cheek to cheek . . . to cheek . . . to cheek . . ." Table muscle. Belly, stomach, paunch: "Monroe likes to brag about how strong he is, but it looks to me like that table muscle's the one that gets the most workin' out." Pert near, but not plumb. Almost, but not totally: "I'm pert near, but not plumb, drunk." To split the sheets. To be separated or divorced. To chip the moss off one's teeth. To brush one's teeth, especially after a night of serious drinking. She had kittens. She was astonished, mightily. Snot-nose. Arrogance: "If you don't straighten up, boy, the world is gonna have a long party knockin' the snot-nose outa you." Left-handed cigaret. Marijuana cigaret: "I think that new guy's been smokin' left-handed cigarets. He just came over and asked me if Tuesday comes before or after November." Since Mody Dick was a minnow. Since Time Immemorial. World Without End. Amen. ------------------------ Conversational Fragments ------------------------ "I love you, but cut the cards." A statement of affection without complete trust. "Now, Jim Bob, you know I think the world of you, but I can't lend you the money on a smile-and-a-handshake basis. I mean I love you, but cut the cards, if you get my meaning." "I'm serious as cancer." As Alice in Wonderland might have said, "Seriouser and seriouser . . ." "He's checkin' his eyelids for pinholes." "He" is taking a little nap, but if you wake him up and ask him, he'll deny it. "Boy, when you're 18, your plate is broken and your corner of the table is sawed off in this house." When the son comes of age, it's time for him to leave home and hearth, and go out into the cold cruel world and seek his fortune. And quit mooching off his folks. "Throw some glass in that pneumonia hole!" Close the window. Usually heard while riding in an automobile. "Might as well. Can't dance, and it's too wet to plow." Acquiescent answer to any suggestion; "Okay, let's." "It'll feel better when it stops hurtin'." Simple, and I do mean simple, words of comfort. "Hold a strain on 'er, partner." As much as is in your power, maintain control of your life. "I've enjoyed just about all of this I can stand." I'm bored and/or repelled by this. Let's go. "If he tells you a rooster can pull a railroad train, you better buy yourself a ticket." Refers to someone who is an expert in his sphere of knowledge. He's the Man Who Knows. "Whatever blows your dress up." Whatever pleases you. "We're waitin' on you like one hog waits on another." Usually heard at mealtime, when you're late and the others have begun the meal without you. "I'm so hungry I'm left-handed." Implies a hunger so intense it is accompanied by reversal of cerebral polarity. "Park your carcass." Make yourself comfortable. "What do you think you're drivin'? Nails?" Usually hollered at a slow driver, this expression is at least as old as the age of automobiles, and probably as old as nails. "That'd gag a maggot!" Refers to something terminally disgusting. "Anything not a mystery is guesswork." 1. One of the Eleusinian mysteries. 2. One of the Tex Arcana. 3. None of the above. ------------ Exclamations ------------ "I feel so good I'm gettin' jealous of myself!" "If I was doin' any better I couldn't stand it and the law wouldn't allow it." "Shoot low, they're ridin' Shetlands!" Good advice if you're in a fire fight with pygmy outlaws. If you're not, just say it for fun. ------------------ Slurs and Slanders ------------------ "He's cross-threaded between the ears." He's not stupid; he's crazy. "He could fall up a tree." "He could fall out of a well." Both descriptive of the accident prone, the subconsciously suicidal, and/or the terminally clumsy. "If you're going to homestead it, why don't you build a fence around it?" Usually hollered at slow drivers. "Look at that face; it's done wore out two bodies." Said of someone's old face, said with love and only to someone you know well. "A hundred-yard dash and a good cigar would kill him." He's so out of shape he's only breathing from memory. ". . . put a rattlesnake in his pocket and ask him for a match . . ." A uniquely Texican way to settle an old score. ". . . if he had a brain he'd play with it." A cretin. ------------------- That Drinkin' Thing ------------------- ". . . drivin' one of them old drunk cars . . ." Euphemism for D.W.I., Driving While Intoxicated. I once saw a guy coming out of the Palo Pinto County Jail early in the morning. Asked him what he had been in for. He smiled a little sheepishly and said, "Drivin' one of them ol' drunk cars." "I got a D.W.I. last week for not having enough blood in my alcohol stream." "It's gettin' drunk out(side)." Means it's getting drunk inside the speaker. Whisky dents. Those irregularities, large and small, that you find in your car, or on your head, after a night at the shrine of Bacchus. Calf slobber. Foam on a head of beer: "I like to pour it into the glass real fast to get a good head of calf slobber on it." "Ta kill ya." Tequila. Cowboy cool. Chambre, room temperature, referring to beer. It's called "cowboy cool" even if the "room" is the trunk of a car on a hot summer day. To: chunkstyle@abingdon.eng.sun.com Subject: texasese Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1991 21:24:47 PDT From: Andy.Banta@eng.sun.com Because it's always classic, always in fashion, and Geoff Miller wanted it, here's the Texasese article. Well, a week or so ago someone posted a request for Texasese (Texese?). Anyway, I finally found this file buried deep in my archives. Enjoy. Conversational Fragments -------------- --------- "If it harelips the governor. . ." 1. No matter what the cost 2. Equals "come hell or high water. . ." and implies an implacable determination to succeed in an endeavor, from working a crossword puzzle to finagling the purchase of a select oil lease, even if to do so con- stitutes a slap in the Face of the Law. "I know she's married, and I know she loves her husband, and I know he's a big, mean, jealous man, but I'm gonna bed her if it harelips the governor!" "Before I _____, I couldn't spit over my chin. But now that I _____, I can spit all over my chin." 1. This is a device used to demonstrate, albeit facetiously, how some- thing, or someone, has brought about a radical improvement in the quality of one's life. The blanks can be filled in with whatever pleases you: "Before I joined the Moose Lodge, I couldn't. . ." Or, "Before I met your mother, I couldn't spit over my chin, etc." "That'd gag a maggot!" 1. Refers to something terminally disgusting. A Texican Lexicon - ------- ------ to domino 1. To give birth, to bear a child. "Hows the wife?" "Oh, she's fixin' to domino here about March or April." whipout 1. Money. "Got any whipout?" "My new pickup cost me nine thousand whipout." graderblade 1. A face, pretty or otherwise. "Would you look at the graderblade on that new barmaid?" fawnching 1. Complaining, sulking. "Boy, you see that yard out there? Well that's my yard. Now, you see that grass all over my yard? That's your grass. I want you to quit fawnchin' around this house and get out there and get your grass off my yard, 'cause it ain't gettin' anything but higher, and I ain't gettin' anything but madder." stump-broke 1. Unquestionably obedient. A "stump-broke" mule is a mule which has been trained to back up to, and stand before a stump for purposes of passive sexual intercourse. "What's wrong with my nose? I'll tell you what's wrong with my nose. I asked Gunther if he had his girl-friend stump-broke yet, and he hit me on it, that's what." tricycle motor 1. A chile. Also: house-ape, crumb-cruncher, curtain-climber, rug-rat and yard-ape. snot-nose 1. Arrogance. "I'll tell you something, son. If you don't straighten up, the world is gonna have a long party knockin' that snot-nose outa you." pissant 1. Pejorative diminutive. "Yeah, I know he's a sawed-off little ol' pissant, but you call him 'shorty' and he'll stop your heart." mullygrubbing 1. Sulking, petulant behavior. "So your sister Darlene runned off with a albino motorcycle gang presi- dent. Mullygrubbin' around the house ain't gonna help. Don't you worry, Tyshonda, we'll find you somebody just as good!" to split the sheets 1. To be separated or divorced. "Me and the ol' lady split the sheets a year ago, and I'm growin' a toe- nail on my dick, from fuckin' my socks." chingaladdo 1. Anglo pronunciation of "chingadero", literally, fucker. Equates to thingamajob, thingumbob, whatsis, and whatchamacallits of this ilk. Snakenavel 1. A fictitious city, usually said to be in Idaho. Used to give someone an idea of where you live. The wrong idea. "I've been from Bumfuck, Egypt to Snakenavel, Idaho." murdercycle 1. A motorcycle. Roebuckers 1. Prosthetic dentures. left-handed cigarette 1. Marijuana cigarette. "I think that new guy's been smokin' some of that wacky backy. He just came over and asked me if Tuesday combes before or after November." A Blue Tick-Plot cross bitch 1. A female cross-bred raccoon-hunting hound. Beeshit 1. Honey. "She calls me 'beeshit,' 'cause I'm so sweet." Wickerbill 1. Term of endearment. "Lay down, you little wickerbill; I think I love you." henfruit, or cackleberries 1. Chicken eggs. . . .smooth. . . 1. An in-fixed adjective. "My cousin took one look at his new-born baby and fainted smooth away." "That city boy fucked smooth up when he started makin' fun of Shorty." Horny. . .as a three-balled tomcat 1. Describes one who has an exaggerated second chakra, hyperfunctioning libido, or is in the throes of satyriasis. "My cousin Aubrey's horny as a three-balled tomcat. He'd rather fuck than eat, and he's hungry ALL the time!" Hungry. . .enough to eat the ass out of a menstuating skunk. 1. I'd rather die. Slick. . .as two eels fuckin' in a bucket of snot. 1. Unseen but by the eye of the deranged mind. Sticks. . .like shit to a blanket. 1. A truly existential stickiness, of which Sartre spoke. Strong. . .enough to stick his funger up his ass and hold himself out at arm's length. 1. I'd pay a nickel to see that. Stubborn. . .as a fly. 1. From the Spanish: "terco como una mosca." A fly will land on your face a thousand times if for nothing else than the pleasure of waking you up from a dead drunk. Sucks. . .like a bucket of ticks. 1. Something, or someone, that "sucks" is of little value. "This job sucks like a bucket of ticks." Tough. . .as a Mexican family. 1. High toughness factor. Few social units have the solidarity of the Mexican family. If you fight one member, you have to fight them all, down to the last third cousin, twice removed. Ugly. . .as Death backing out of a shithouse reading "Mad Magazine". . . "Leon talks about his wife like she was Miss America, but I saw her in the Piggly Wiggly the other day, and let me tell you, that woman is as ugly as Death backing out of a shithouse reading 'Mad Magazine'. . ." Wild. . .as a shithouse mouse. 1. If you've ever stepped into a privy and found a mouse, you'll know how wild with fear a little mouse can become. With no exit but the hole in the seat, it's a dilemma no one, not even a mouse, should be faced with. Scattered. . .like a madwoman's shit 1. Strewn about in great disorder. "O.K.; you men're gonna have to clean up this tool room. You got tools and junk and good God there's a month-old half a samwich on your lathe! You got stuff scattered around here lake a madwoman's shit!" Boneyard 1. In the oilfield, usually a great rusting heap of barely usable old pipe connections, used for spare parts. To grab another cog. 1. In the realm of the internal-combustion-powered vechicle, this means to shift to a lower gear, as when pulling a heavy load up a steep grade. Stud duck (also: stud buzzard) 1. The acknowledged leader or a clique, or community. "Sheriff Buckshot is the stud duck around here, and if he tells you a rooster can pull a freight train, you better get off the track." Back when snakes used to walk. 1. Once upon a time, long ago. Eat up with the dumbass. 1. Consumed with stupidity. "When I saw ol' Delbert tryin' to siphon gas uphill, I knew for sure he was eat up with the dumbass." Hyperboles, Similes, etc. ----------- -------- ---- Ass. . .like a black widow spider's. 1. Possessed of a Callipygian luxuriance, or a big ass. Busy. . .as a cat in a feedlot. 1. A cat could spend all nine lives trying to bury that manure. Crazy. . .as a football bat. Dry. . .as a fish fart rolled in sand. Fits. . .like a sock on a duck's nose. 1. With nary a wrinkle. "That knit suit fits her like a sock on a duck's nose." Grinnin'. . .like a cat eating shit out of a hairbrush. "I remember back in the '50s when the whorehouse, the Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas, was in operation. One night me and Beaky and Toenails and Jim Bob went. I had got ten dollars from my Granny for my eighteenth birthday, so I spent five of it on what they called a 'short date." And short it was: a regular 'wham, bam, thank you, Ma'am.' Anyway Jim Bob went in, lost his cherry, and when he walked back out to the car, he was grinnin' like a cat eatin' shit out of a hairbrush. I asked him what was so funny and he told us he's tore that gal a new one. He said she told him to put it in, and when he said it WAS in, she started hollerin' like he was killin' her!" Happy. . .as a queer in Boy's Town. Exclamations & Ejaculata ------------ - --------- "Ive seen a goat-roping, a fat stock show, and a duck fart under water, but it that don't beat any damn thing I've EVER seen, I'll put in with you!!" 1. Indicates terminal astonishment on the part of the speaker. I heard it once (directed at me), when I walked into the El Campo, Texas, lodge- house of the Benebolent and Protective Order of the Elk, No. 1402, in 1969. The fact that I had hair down to the middle of my back and looked like a cross between an ugly Viking and an orangutan may have had some- thing to do with it. "Boy?! Don't you call ME 'Boy'! I got a yard of dick, a number two washtub full of balls, and enough hair on my ass to weave an Indian blanked, and you call me 'Boy'???" 1. If anybody ever calls you "Boy", you're ready. "I don't give a national fuck!" 1. The speaker could not possible care any less than he already doesn't. A Selection of Handy Phrases Apropos of Violence - --------- -- ----- ------- ------- -- -------- "They ought to put Chinese handcuffs on their dicks and let 'em fight it out." 1. This evokes a bizarre image, if you remember that Chinese handcuffs are those woven straw tubes into which your index fingers are inserted. ". . .from asshole to appetite. . ." 1. From anus to gullet. This is where people sometimes get cut, from. . to, and mortally every time. "He cut that sumbitch from asshole to appetite. Gutted him like a deer. God, he looked like a red canoe layin' there on the ground." Wall-to-wall counseling 1. A physical beating given with the ultimate aim of redirecting the behavior of the beatee. That Drinkin' Thing ---- -------- ----- "Whiskey when you're sick makes you well. Whiskey makes you sick when you're well." 1. If you can repeat the above couplet after two or three hours of quaffing cold ones, then have a few more and try again. Stop drinking when you can't repeat it correctly. "I got a D.W.I. last week for not having enough blood in my alcohol stream." "You don't buy beer, you rent it." 1. Reference to the short period of time you actually possess beer before it leaves you. Knee-crawlin', snot-slingin' drunk 1. A severe degree of drunkenness, after enduring which all your friends feel compelled to give you reports on what you did, what you said to whom, and who's gunning for you. "It's gettin' drunk out(side). 1. Means it's getting drunk inside the speaker. "Fourteen Feathers" 1. Thunderbird wine, fourteen being the number of feathers on the wings of the bird on the label. Cowboy cool 1. "Chambre", room temperature, referring to beer. It's called "cowboy cool" even if the "room" is the trunk of a car on a hot summer day. "I don't have any cold beers, but you're welcome to one of these if you don't mind it being cowboy cool." Whiskey dents 1. Those irregularities, large and small, that you find in your car (or on your head) after a night at the shrine of Bacchus. "He's got so many whiskey dents on his car, the fenders look like wash- boards." Calf-slobber 1. Foam on a head of beer. "I like to pour it into the glass real fast to get a good head of calf- slobber on it." The bird 1. Austin Nichols' Wild Turkey Whiskey. "The Bird" is spoken of with reverence around the evening campfires of Texas "whiskophiles." "I've never seen anybody that loved that ol' Bird as much as Jim Ed. When he buys a bottle, he just throws the cap away. Always holds his nose when he drinks it, too. Says the aroma, he calls it 'the bo-kay,' reminds him of Texas so much he starts cryin', and he don't like to dilute his whiskey with tears." "She heaved a couple of times, then she hit fluid." 1. Firsthand description of an oilfield worker's girlfriend drunk to the point of regurgitation. In the oilfield, "hitting fluid" can mean striking oil. And a few lines about the Dark One, the Hangover, who Waits in the Wings: "I feel like hammered dogshit." "I feel like I was eat by a coyote and then shit off a cliff." "I feel like I was shot at and missed, shit at and hit." Sex, and other Bodily Functions ---- --- ----- ------ --------- Assjack 1. A small cushion kept in the back seat of one's car, used for elevating the pelvis of the sexual partner, facilitating entry and deeper penetra- tion. Should anyone ask, the cushion is for resting Granny's neck on long Sunday drives. "Damn, Elon! That you assjack smells so bad?! You ought to burn that thing, or cut it up into catfish bait!" To pack someone's peanut butter 1. To commit aggressive anal sex. The Flying "T" 1. An acrobatic sexual stunt in which the lady is placed standing on her head, legs spread, given mouth-to-vagina resuscitation, while the legs are cranked back and forth. Stop when she's drilled into the ground up to her navel. "When my dick gets hard it draws up so much skin I can't even close my eyes." 1. Now we know why elephants are so wrinkly. A Blue-Steel Hardon 1. An adamantine erection. The difference between a regular hardon and and a Blue-Steel hardon is: when you press downward on a regular hardon and release it, it springs back up and slaps you in the belly two or three times. When you press down on a Blue-Steeler, your feet fly out rearward from beneath you. ". . .let me just put the head in. . ." 1. This means, "Allow me to just insert the glans penis, and I promise not to take advantage." A lie. A pathetic, oft-attempted line which never works. No wonder there's a Women's Liberation Movement. "How's you hammer hangin'?" 1. A general greeting with penile undertones. Or hardware overtones. "When a man gets fuckin' on his mind all his brains go into the head of his dick." 1. With room to spare. Lip wrasslin' 1. Osculation. "I hate to pick J.L. up for work. Him and his wife stand there and lip- wrassle for ten minutes before he's ready to go. Sounds like a toothless tomato-eatin' contest." Swappin' spit 1. Osculation Gudentight 1. German word for "virgin." Duckbutter 1. Smegma. "I'm not prone to argue. . ." 1. That is to say, "Contention is not the primary reason I'm lying naked beside you. . ." "I was so mad at my wife I sat on the side of the bed and jacked off just to show my independence." "It's o.k. to lope your mule if he comes up, but it's not o.k. to call him up." 1. This means that if you have an erection, it's acceptable to mastur- bate; it is, however, unacceptable to arouse yourself for the purpose of masturbation. "This won't hurt, did it?" 1. Texas foreplay. "Gettin' any mud for your turtle?" 1. "Have you engaged in sex lately?" ". . .gave my dick a dishonorable discharge. . ." 1. Masturbated. "When I was in the army, a sergeant caught me in the shower in the process of giving my dick a dishonorable discharge. I looked him straight in the eye and told him it was my dick and I could wash it as fast as I wanted to. Never missed a stroke, either." "They go off in the bushes and bump dickheads, I reckon." 1. Erroneous speculation of sex between consenting males. The above re- mark was made by a Texas cowboy concerning the enigma of male homosex- uality. And it came to Pass: Gas --- -- ---- -- ----- --- "Son, the next time you eat a skunk, try peelin' it first" "Rave on, Toothless Wonder!" "Well, your voice has changed, but your breath smells the same." A Few Meteorological Observations - --- -------------- ------------ "It got so cold my dick drawed up almost to my knee." "It was rainin' frogs fuckin' ducks." "The rain was so spotty the other day, I was out huntin' and had my double- barreled shotgun leanin' up against a tree and it only rained in one barrel." "It was rainin' like a double-cunted cow pissin' off a forty-foot cliff through a screen onto a flat rock." Philosophical Observations ------------- ------------ "You can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first." 1. Wishful thinking is far less likely to produce results than direct action. "Blood is thicker than water, but come (cum) is thicker than blood." 1. Members of one's family deserve more loyalty than those outside the family, but one's spouse deserves more loyalty than even blood relatives. If you have to take sides between you wife (or husband), and a member of your family, your mate always comes first. "You buy 'em books and you buy 'em books and they just chew on the covers." 1. Some people are impervious to the counsel of Wisdom. They just can't, or won't learn. ------------- The other day, a friend of mine (from Texas) and I went out to a local steakhouse. This is the dialog that followed after I made my order. WAITRESS: And for you, sir? JOHN: I'll have the top sirloin. WAITRESS: And how would you like that cooked. JOHN: Just whack off the horns, wipe its ass, and throw it on the plate. WAITRESS: Rare? JOHN: Rare. ---- Heard on the occasion of George W. Bush's inauguration as the 43d president: well-tended 1. Everything that can be done, has been done. "There are a lot of well-tended women in Texas." ---- dick-fingered: lacking manual dexterity, as in "He's so dick-fingered he can't pick his nose without putting his eye out."