Wednesday, September 19, 2007

And here I thought my Texas twang wasn't that thick...

Quick question: Do any of you use the phrase "fixin' to?" I seem to use this quite a bit, and it clues anyone here in St. Louis that's paying attention to the fact that I grew up in Texas as it seems it's not a phrase that's widely used in the Midwest. Even my wife chuckles every time I use it, like last night. We also had a discussion about the pronunciation of "catch up" and "ketchup." She pronounces them distinctly different, and they seem to sound like the same word when I say it. Apparently, my linguistic skills run towards the George W. Bush route because she caught me saying "nuk-u-ler" instead of "nuk-le-ar" the other day, as well.

2 comments:

Dutch said...

Nah, I purposefully avoided picking up phrases like fixin' to and y'all when I moved to Texas in 84.

However, I do sometimes find myself pronouncing with a drawl - I sometimes hear myself saying "fahv" instead of "five."

Anonymous said...

I say fixin to and yall all the time. These seem to fit in the south a little bit more but I think they are still predominantly Texan.

Catch up vs. Ketchup: These don't sound the same for me, but only because I shift the emphasis. I emphasize the up in Catch up and the "catch" in ketchup