I walked into my friend's office at work the other day and said "Mr Doe's daughter called and said that he might eat nabs and a coke for a snack in the mornings." Now, I thought this was a good thing because Mr. Doe happens to be not eating and losing weight, but then I noticed that my friend had a strange look on her face. She said, "Nabs? What is that?" We then proceeded to have a conversation about how she had no idea what nabs are. She had never heard the word. She is originally from Michigan and last week we also realized that what I call "pantyhose", she calls "nylons".
So, we did a little research and found the history of the word "nabs" online. We have asked around at work and, interestingly, several native North Carolinians haven't heard of nabs.
My husband said that some people refer to "round" and "square nabs". I think of nabs as being any of the crackers in packages of 6 while some only call the square cheese crackers "nabs".
I found some other websites that have lists of Southern slang and had a few laughs. The thread on the Southern Living website mentions "fixin' to" and I know that I am guilty of saying that lots of times. Another website lists "no 'count" which I had never heard of until I started dating my husband.
What other words can you think of that are regional? What words have you used that others didn't know when you used them?
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3 comments:
I always laugh when I hear crackers called "Nabs". I don't ever remember my mom calling them that until she moved back to NC.
One slang I picked up was "come see" in Louisiana. There are others, but I can't remember them right now. We could probably write a book w/ all the ones my grandmother uses!
I have always called them all nabs - like you. I am definitely guilty of fixin' to and, of course, I say "coke" for all Coca-Colas and Pepsis.
I had someone at work visit us from our Chicago office and wondered why I had a calendar with cows dressed up at my desk. I was explaining it was a Chick-Fil-A calendar and he didn't get it. He had NEVER heard of Chick-Fil-A or Eat More Chicken!? I was shocked.
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