Food names - regional differences? - Page 5

Sooner · ‎03-10-2010

I know of some convenience stores called "Tote-A-Poke"! ONLY in the south I'll bet! LOL!!!

birkin baby · ‎01-20-2011

@Sooner wrote:
I know of some convenience stores called "Tote-A-Poke"! ONLY in the south I'll bet! LOL!!!

Oh, I have toted many a poke in my day! Lol

Of course in my daily work life, I "carry a bag",but I love the old southern words. I still can hear my grandmothers saying those words and I just smile.

novamc1 · ‎07-02-2015

??? You folks have really lost me with the references to "poke"............never heard of toting a poke.............what am I missing???? In other words, what in the heck are you talking about?

novamc1 · ‎07-02-2015

@chickenbutt

re: how Paula Deen prounounces confectioner's sugar and says "confectionate" instead

People with a deep Southern accent either cannot or just don't enunciate the "er" at the end of words. The "er" sound usually turns into an "ah".

You should hear how my husband's lifelong friends pronounce our last name.......instead of ending in an "er", it always ends in an "ah".

A couple of those friends have actually made fun of me for pronouncing it properly........ it's the old "****** Yankee" kind of thing that anyone born and bred further north is likely to hear from the Southern folks. However, it's fun to make fun of them right back.

Some folks have accused PD of falsely playing up her deep Southern accent........ I believe.her accent is real and that whenever a deep accent isheard from anyone else from the South, this does NOT necessarily reflect the breeding or education of the speaker.

Sooner · ‎03-10-2010

We have lots of relatives in the south and they don't buy the PD phony accent either. Sorry, but they think she reflects badly on Southerners and won't watch her at all. She didn't talk that way to begin with etiher.

Sooner · ‎03-10-2010

@novamc1 wrote:
??? You folks have really lost me with the references to "poke"............never heard of toting a poke.............what am I missing???? In other words, what in the heck are you talking about?

Some old-time Southerners called a sack or bag a "poke." So tote-a-poke means carry a bag or satchel.

"Get yo poke and carry me to the sto" would translate to "Get your purse and take me to the store."

Being as how you don't know this, you possible would be confused about a "tow sack." It is a heavy burlap bag used to put horse and cattle feed in, seed wheat and such, oats, or anything else heavy and big. Some called it "gunny sack" too. Also, "tow sack" referred to a long sack with a shoulder strap that people drug along in the fields picking cotton. Yes, African American AND white people--poor people--picked cotton by hand a lot up into the 1950s.

I wish I still had one of the stacks and stacks of tow sacks we had!

okaywitheasypay · ‎03-27-2011

Bellabutterfly, Same experience here in IN with mango and green bell peppers! I have often wondered why they were called 'mango peppers'. I think I will google that sometime.

When I first watched tv shows /movies based in NY I wondered what the characters were asking for when they would say "give me a slice". I would think --a slice of what? Now where I live there are some food trucks called NYSlice.

Language is fascinating in how it evolves and changes. Also how individuals respond.

LIndaMJ · ‎11-02-2014

In the northeast, we called the 'hard candy on the end of a short sick that you lick' a Lollipop; here in the southeast it is called a Sucker.

chickenbutt · ‎03-09-2010

Hi Novamc! The reason I don't believe PD's accent is that I remember watching her when she first had a show. Of course you could tell that she was from the south but her accent was nowhere near what it became after she got a lot more famous. The difference is truly staggering!

I don't know if she was told to play it up or she decided on her own, but her accent profoundly changed at one point.

Both of my parents are from the south and i've spent time in several states down there. I've heard all kinds of accents. It's kind of cool the variations from area to area. I also spent some time in Georgia and never met a single person who had an over-done accent like hers.

Maybe she, or they, thought it would be more endearing but to people I know in the south, and to many of us not from the south, it really does drip of fakery in a big way. But I suppose it served its purpose as she got more and more attention - maybe not all of it for the right reasons, but it happened.