Although I have lived in the Northeast for 20 years, I was born in the South and consider myself a Southerner. Growing up, I always got a kick out of what I’d call southern expressions. My father is chock full of them so I asked him to write down anything he could think of. He sat around with some friends the other night and came up with a doozy of a list. Priceless.

• Tight as dicks hatband
• His front porch light is burnt out
• Old as dirt
• Full as a tick
• So good it’ll make you smack yo mama
• He’s all hat – no cattle
• You’re like the dog that caught the car
• Country as a churn
• Lower than a snake’s belly
• Prettier than a picture
• Hotter than a $2 pistol
• Colder than a well diggers ass
• Quieter than a graveyard
• Sneakier/meaner than a snake
• She’s seen better days
• He’s higher than a kite
• He’s uglier than a mud fence
• That’s smoother than a spanked baby’s butt
• Like water off a duck’s back
• He’s livin high on the hawg
• Faster than a scalded dog
• Slicker than snot
• Uglier than homemade sin
• Like a bat outta hell
• Sick as a dog
• One foot in the grave
• Skinny as a rail
• He’s wrapped too tight
• Long dip in the ugly pond
• She came down the road like a Tennessee Walker
• Dressed like a Philadelphia lawyer
• Nervous as a cat in a room full of rockers
• Grinning like a mule eating briars
• Grinning like a possum eating persimmons
• He’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg
• He was caught with his pants down
• She just flew off the handle
• I got the short end of the stick
• He went hog wild
• We always go to bed with the chickens
• He went after it whole hog
• I’ve got no axe to grind
• I’ve got no dog in this fight
• Holler like a stuck pig
• I haven’t see you in a coon’s age
• He just sits there like a bump on a log
• They’re like two peas in a pod
• Scarce as hen’s teeth
• You’re a sight for sore eyes
• Two shakes of a lamb’s tail
• He’s playing possum
• She’s a spring chicken
• That’s the fly in the ointment
• Deader than a door nail
• He could go bear hunting with a switch
• That’s better than a sharp stick in the eye
• Gooder’n snuff and not half as dusty
• He won’t hit a lick at a snake
• He’s got a tough row to hoe
• I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck
• I don’t know her from Adam’s house cat
• That kid ain’t knee high to a grasshopper
• That dog won’t hunt
• Sure as a cat has a climbing gear
• Slower than molasses
• She’s so poor she ain’t got two nickels to rub together
• Runnin around like a chicken with his head cut off
• Rode hard and put up wet
• That’s right as rain
• It was so good it would bring tears to a glass eye
• So ugly she could snag lightning
• Your butt would make her a Sunday face
• Useless as teats on a hog
• He’s dumb as a sack full of hammers
• He looks like he got beat with a ugly stick
• You look like something the cat drug in
• You’re not worth the gunpowder it’ll take to blow you away
• Cute as a bug’s ear
• He lives in your neck of the woods
• He couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag
• I wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole
• I’m gonna tan your hide
• It’s as hot as blue blazes
• Long as a month of Sundays
• Slow as Christmas
• Left like a herd of turtles
• Finer than frog hair
• Green as a gourd
• Less chance than a snowball in Hell
• He’s 3 sheets in the wind
• Gooder than grits
• Pretty as a speckled pup
• Crazy as a bed bug
• I love you a bushel and a peck
• He’s gone to hell in a hand basket
• She treats me like a red headed step child
• That politician is so crooked he can hide behind a corkscrew
• He doesn’t know shit from shinola
• She thinks her shit don’t stink
• He doesn’t have a pot to pee in
• Up shit creek without a paddle
• I’ll be there if the Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise
• Madder than an old wet hen
• Crazy as a shithouse rat
• Bless yore pea pickin heart
• Fit as a fiddle
• Were you raised in a pig pen?
• Were you raised in a barn?
• He looks like he stepped out of a bandbox
• Act like you’ve got some raisin.
• High as a Georgia pine
• He can’t carry a tune in a bucket
• You go around your elbow to get to your thumb
• She’s tighter than the skin on a grape
• She’s so tight she squeaks
• He’s wound tighter than a Gibson Guitar
• What in the Sam Hill are you doing?
• Scratch your mad place and get glad
• Busier than a one armed paper hanger
• She looks like death warmed over
• She don’t have the sense God gave a gopher
• That would make a train take a dirt road
• That’s water over the dam
• In your life, you’ve got to eat a peck of dirt
• You’re barking up the wrong tree
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew
• Don’t count your chickens until they hatch
• Don’t let the tail wag the dog
• Don’t let your mouth overload your arse
• Either fish or cut bait
• Even a blind hog find an acorn now and then
• Don’t go off half-cocked
• Don’t get your feathers ruffled
• Don’t get too big for your britches
• Don’t flog a dead horse
• Birds of a feather flock together
• If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas
• You’re trying to push a rope
• You can’t get blood from a turnip
• Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black
• Misery loves company
• You can’t tell nobody nothing that hasn’t never been nowhere
• No skin off my nose
• Whatta you mean ‘Fair”….the fair comes in the fall
• He’s livin in High cotton
• Well, shut my mouth
• Hold your horses
• Ridden hard and hung up wet
• She looked like death eating a cracker