Twitchy reminded me of this word.

I love it. "I'm fixin' to go to the store" or whatever. That's great. Used to be part of my everyday vocabulary, but it has fallen by the wayside since I returned to the northeast.

Fixin' is great.

Reckon, not so much.

I still use it all the time, myself. As do most people around here.

I only vaguely recall where you are. I want to say you're in or up against the southern strech of the Appalachians, in the Tennessee area, but my memory could be off (or I might be making that up). When I lived in that region I used it a lot, too.

Never used it, never will.

I'm fixin' to use it a lot more, from here on in.

I reckon I might do the same, Tuna.

Ayup.

I have indeed lived in Tennessee, but I'm an Arkansas native and living there now.

When I hear a recording of my voice, I'm always amazed by how broad my accent sounds. Ironically when I was younger some people said I didn't sound that much like a southerner. Something's evidently changed over the years.

I use 'reckon' a lot more than 'fixin''. You know...so I don't sound unedumucated, or nothin'.

I hate all of you.

I think I've mentioned this before, but as an old linguistics major, I love the superfluous 'at' as in "Where'd y'all get that at?" I wish I could use it in daily speech, but I'm afraid it'd sound phony.

A man is lost in the city, and asks an elderly woman for directions.

"Excuse me," he says. "Where's the library at?"

The woman, a retired English teacher, waggles her index finger and says, "Young man, you should never end a sentence -- or a question -- with a preposition."

The young man thinks for a moment before rephrasing his question.

"Excuse me," he says. "Where's the library at, bitch?"

One of my drill sergeants used to say "Fuckin' cause fuckin'".

And so it goes...I was the 69th view.

Your smartitude is stupendifying, Holt.

Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
Nicotine, valium, vodka, and marijuana, ecstacy, and alchohol
C-c-c-c-c-cocaine
C-c-c-c-c-cocaine
C-cocaine

Sold my house
Lost my job
Crashed my car

Cocaine

Fixin' is received wisdom in these here parts. Even the most erudite among us use it. It's a whole tense in itself -- to be "fixing" to do something is to be on the precipice of starting.

Here in the South, we have several tenses that we were required to invent to get around the limitations of the crude language of English. Another example is the "used to could" tense. As in "I can't play like I used to could" or "She used to could put her fist in her mouth. Where did I leave her number?"

"Used to could" is a new one on me.

The one I hear a lot from Indiana-bred folks is the omission of "to be" where it should be, i.e. "The lawn needs mowed."

"Might could've" is another variation.

Jeff Foxworthy did a whole bit about "useta could."