A Navy veteran recalls hearing the Southern expression fat lighter from his wife’s family in Troy, Alabama. It denotes an old, resin-rich pine wood that becomes highly flammable as it ages. Fat lighter is prized as kindling and often called fat...
Beth from Charlotte, North Carolina, says that if Beth’s hair looked messy, her grandmother would gently chide her with the phrase Your hair looks like a hoo-hoo bird in a haw-haw tree! The name hoo-hoo bird refers to an odd mythical animal...
The term hot mess refers to someone whose life is chaotic or otherwise somewhat dysfunctional. Heard primarily in the South, hot mess is often used affectionately, suggesting that the person is attractive despite the messiness of their life. This is...