I am NOT taking the Lord's name in vain....

...but I AM butchering the English language.

I am Southern. That means that I tend to use interesting phrases to make my point. My word of choice lately is "Bloomin". It's not just a word that I use to make my writing interesting (yeah, that would be a stretch), it is the way I talk.

Bloomin replaced the word "Freakin". I couldn't use freakin anymore because someone took that perfectly good word and corrupted it - made it stand for something ugly instead of just my emphasis word of choice.

Bloomin stinkers... why'd they have to go and do that anyway?



When I was a little girl, my father's family used crass language to make their point. After supper, the kids were sent to the living room to play while the aunts, uncles, and Grandaddy sat around and talked... colorfully.

One day, when my mother and I were in the car, someone pulled out in front of us. I said "Good God Almighty!" My mother looked at me shocked and said "Do NOT say that again." I asked her why and she said it was bad to take the Lord's name in vain (TTLNIV offense). I pointed out that my Grandaddy said that all of the time (and he did). She gave the typical Mom response - "That doesn't make it right."

But really, there wasn't anyway for me to know that phrase was off limits to me. Grandaddy said that when he hugged us hello. "Good God Almighty!" said with a smile in his voice... instead of saying "Wow! Look how much you have grown!" I always knew by the tone in his voice what he was really trying to say in his greeting.

I also knew that when he said "GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!", he wanted to strangle his son. My Daddy would aggravate the vicious Chihuahua that sat on his father's lap to the point that it would pee on my Grandaddy. That nasty little unfriendly dog that haunts my dreams to this day loved no one but my Grandaddy and would snap and bark at all of us equally. I was SO afraid of that bloomin dog and I hated it. Maybe my Dad hated it too and that is why he liked making the horrible thing lose control of its bladder.... while it was sitting on Grandaddy's lap.

But after I got in trouble for using Grandaddy's emphasis word, I realized that I was not supposed to take the Lord's name in vain and it did not always mean saying "G.D." in my mother's eyes. I did.... well, I do struggle with the word "Lord!" (pronounced "Lor-duh"). It slips out when I am frustrated. Or if something is funny to me the wording is a giggled "Oh Lord!" (pronounced Oh Lo-rrrrrd. Every word has extra syllables with this Southern drawl of mine). I am trying to refrain from using "Lord" in a manner other than prayerfully, but that bad habit is deeply ingrained and hard to break. And I don't even really know if that counts as Taking The Lord's Name In Vain.

I have also heard people say "They God!" pronounced They Gaaaaawd! God goes up an octave and lasts a while. I don't know what that phrase means exactly but said by just the right person it sounds quite charming and like they are filled with wonder. Since I don't know exactly what it means, I am not sure if it is a TTLNIV offense. It certainly doesn't sound offensive.

Just a note... Southerners don't even have to use actual words. We can communicate in sighs and grunts too (and we wonder why the rest of the country views us as 'unrefined'). When we are commiserating with a friend or hearing a "Bless her heart" story, we may say "MM! mm mm". If we see a handsome man on a John Deere tractor plowing a field we may say "mm mm MM!" You see how the emphasis on the MM differentiates what we are trying to convey? Pity generated due to idle gossip or farmer lust. It's all in the MM.

Be blessed Y'all, and watch your language:)