By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Hart
“Well, she is just a bit funny turned,” said my mother.
Oh, I knew exactly what my mother meant whenever she said anyone was a bit funny turned and to what degree, with the tone in which she said it.
It had nothing to do with anyone being humorous.
You see, my mother was never one to speak badly of someone. She would meander around the bush, saying they just had a strange way about them, albeit … funny turned.
Funny turned had three definitions according to my mother:
#1 They were not a nice person … in my mother’s eyes.
#2 They were a bit off their rocker in the way they thought or acted.
#3 They disagreed with my mother.
Mom didn’t like to criticize. She would do her best to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they continued to be set in their ways about something then Mom could get a bit sideways.
Getting sideways meant she was a bit miffed or madder than an old wet hen. I knew just how sideways she was by the tone of her voice.
I also knew that whenever she was sideways the house would get an extra cleaning. To this day I follow her passion for cleaning whenever I get sideways.
My mom had quite a few Audreyisms that I had to translate for my friends. Funny turned and sideways were just two of them.
A similar expression was that of getting “crossways” with my mom. It meant you were not going along with her ideas. Trust me when I say my mom was one of the nicest ladies you would ever meet, but if you got crossways with her and caused her to be sideways, you better be glad the worst thing she would ever call you was funny turned.
If I ever heard her say she wanted to jerk a knot in someone’s tail, I knew she was about to have a come apart. That funny turned gal or guy had ruffled her feathers a bit too much.
Mom never cussed (aka cursed) or called people the usual bad names, but when she used her Audreyisms … you knew.
I have heard her say someone looked rode hard and put away wet. I knew that person looked bad. You see, whenever a horse runs fast, it sweats under the saddle. The horse needs to dry off before it returns to the barn. If not, it will look bad. If a person has not gotten enough sleep or perhaps smoked some wacky tobacky (grown in Kentucky), then they might look the same way. It’s just not a pretty look.
My mother would never say anyone was ugly unless they were acting ugly. Acting ugly could be anything from pouting to flipping someone off. Mom used the word “ugly” to cover quite a few sins. I thought there should have been an Eleventh Commandment saying, “Thou shalt not act ugly.”
If you lived south of the Ohio River, or you were raised in the south, you usually knew exactly what she was saying … or if you were her daughter. I did a lot of translating for my friends.
She would say that someone needs to quit acting uppity or highfalutin and to quit acting like they have a corn cob up their butt and to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine and then say “well, bless their heart” and all would be well.
Some of these sayings may be different and as funny as all get out, but I assure you that I heard them often while growing up. Heavens to Betsy, my mom and her sisters had their own language. Pert near all of us first cousins (there are more than 60 of us on my mom’s side) knew the language well. I reckon you could say we sure knew that pitchin’ a hissy fit would never work with our moms. We knew never to get too big for our britches either.
I will tell you that every one of these words and phrases I hold dear to my heart. They are part of who I am. The southern language is filled with both quirky and just-telling-it-like-it-is phrases. I still use them quite often and then translate them to my husband.
I come from a rich heritage of the most caring and loving people you would ever meet. They are just like my mom. And not one of them is funny turned.