Tips for Northerners Moving South
  1. Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later how to use it.
  2. If you forget a Southerner's name, refer to him (or her) as "Bubba". You have a 50% chance of being right.
  3. Just because you can drive on snow and ice does not mean we can. Stay home the two days of the year it snows.
  4. If you do run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in the cab of a four wheel drive pick up truck, with a 12-pack of beer and a tow chain, will be along shortly. Don't try to help them. Just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
  5. Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.
  6. Do not buy food at the movie store.
  7. If it can't be fried in bacon grease, it ain't worth cooking, let alone eating.
  8. Remember: "Y'all" is singular. "All y'all" is plural. "All y'all's" is plural possessive.
  9. There is nothing sillier than a Northerner imitating a southern accent, unless it is a southerner imitating a Boston accent.
  10. Get used to hearing, "You ain't from around here, are you?"
  11. People walk slower here.
  12. Don't be worried that you don't understand anyone. They don't understand you either.
  13. The first Southern expression to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "Big ol'", as in "big ol' truck" or "big ol' boy".
  14. Eighty-five percent begin their new southern influenced dialect with this expression. One hundred percent are in denial about it.
  15. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.
  16. Be advised: The "He needed killin'" defense is valid here.
  17. If attending a funeral in the South, remember, we stay until the last shovel of dirt is thrown on and the tent is taken down.
  18. If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all, watch this!" stay out of his way.
  19. These are likely the last words he will ever say.
  20. Most Southerners do not use turn signals, and they ignore those who do.
  21. Northerners can be identified by the spit on the inside of their car's windshield that comes from yelling at other drivers.
  22. The winter wardrobe you always brought out in September can wait until after Thanksgiving.
  23. If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the most minuscule accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It does not matter if you need anything from the store and don't ask why; it is just something you're supposed to do.
  24. Tornadoes and Southerners going through a divorce have a lot in common. In either case, you know someone is going to lose a trailer.
  25. Florida is not considered a southern state. There are far more Yankees than Southerners living there. In Florida, the farther south you go, the farther north you get.
  26. You can ask a Southerner for directions, but unless you already know the positions of key hills, trees, rocks, and "where the ol' schoolhouse used to be," you're better off trying to find it yourself.