Fixing to Tune Up

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Brian from San Diego.

Hiya, Brian. How you doing?

Doing well. How are you?

Okay. What’s on your mind today?

My folks came to visit a couple weeks ago, and I have a four-month-old baby.

Oh, congratulations.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Boy or girl?

It’s a girl.

What’s your name?

Sophia.

Oh.

Every now and then, she, you know, like all babies do, she starts to fuss.

Whenever she would head into that mode, my folks would say she was fixing a tune-up.

I was curious if you had any idea where that came from and what it even means.

Where are your parents from?

From Texas.

East, west?

Houston, okay.

My mom did some time in Georgia where she picked up some…

Hard time?

No, she went to school there.

That can be thought of as that, too.

Yeah, fixin’.

You know, my Virginia-born mother would think nothing of saying,

I’m fixin’ to go get my hair fixed.

Then she’d come home and make turkey with all the fixins.

Right.

Yeah.

I’m not sure how fixin’ to came about, but it’s very, very common in Southern speech.

And, Brian, I’m so glad that you mentioned fixin’ to tune up,

Because I have to tell you, I’ve heard that in the South for a baby being about to cry,

Fixing to tune up.

I haven’t seen it in reference works per se.

Have you, Grant?

I do know that there’s a general use of to tune up,

Meaning to shout or to say loudly or to exercise one’s vocal cords.

But specifically related to a baby crying,

I haven’t seen that in a dictionary, no.

No, but you’ve just experienced it at home recently, right?

I have because I have a seven-month-old myself.

Oh, congratulations.

I’m sorry to say that he’s the cutest baby in the world, Brian,

And that leaves you out.

I don’t know.

We have a competition going there.

-oh, they’re fixing to have a fight.

I got the feeling that this had to do with a performance.

Like she was preparing for a performance,

And so she was tuning up her instrument.

Mm-mm—

It ain’t over till the fat baby sings.

What?

Anyway, it’s a wonderful expression,

And I’m so glad that you brought it to our attention.

I haven’t asked them yet where they think it came from, but…

Probably one of those things they inherited down the years.

To fix into goes back at least a couple hundred years.

I think it was in the American dialect dictionary dated as far back as the 1800s.

And to tune up as far as babies, I think I’ve seen that in the early 1900s.

So both of them have a pretty good history, a really good chance that they predate probably even your grandparents.

Yeah.

So, Brian, does Sophia tune up a lot?

Not anymore.

She was there for the first three months.

She did a lot of tuning up.

And she gave several big performances.

Well, let me just say, as somebody whose baby is just a little bit older than yours,

And based on my very limited experience with one child,

By the fifth month, the smiles come out and everything changes.

Yeah, once she started smiling, it was all worth it.

Aww.

Best of luck, Brian.

Thank you.

Give your little girl a smooch for us, will you?

Okay, I will.

Thanks, Brian.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about an old family saying or something that your grandmother used to mutter under her breath,

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