14 Phrases Virginians Grew Up Hearing That Baffle Everyone Else

Somebody hands a Virginia newcomer a glass of tea on their front porch, and the trouble starts before the ice melts.

Much of what comes out of a Virginian’s mouth sounds like a foreign language to anybody raised north of the Rappahannock.

Virginians never think twice about it, though the blank stare across the table says plenty.

These are the phrases Virginians grew up hearing that leave other Americans lost.

“Fixin’ To”

A Virginian who’s fixin’ to do something has every intention of doing it… just not this second.

“I’m fixin’ to mow the yard” can hold for another hour on the porch, easy.

The phrase covers that gap between deciding to do a thing and getting up off the porch to do it.

Outsiders hear “fixing” and start looking around for something broken.

To a Virginian, nothing’s broken, and the mower will get started when it gets started.

“Might Could”

Virginians stack two helping verbs together and see nothing strange about it.

“I might could help you move Saturday” means maybe yes, maybe no, and don’t hold them to it.

Grammar teachers from other states break out in a cold sweat over it.

The double modal softens a promise into a maybe, which is the whole point of Southern manners.

You’ll hear cousins of it too, like “used to could” and “oughta might,” all over the Virginia Piedmont.

“Cut Off the Light”

Virginians don’t turn lights on and off, and they don’t flip switches either.

They cut them.

“Cut off the light” and “cut on the porch light” come out of Virginia mouths as plain as anything.

The same goes for the television, the radio, and the window unit air conditioner in July.

A newcomer hears “cut on the TV” and half expects somebody to come at the screen with a knife.

“Carry Me to the Store”

When a Virginian asks you to carry them somewhere, put your back into it and grab your keys.

“Carry” means drive, and it’s been that way for generations across rural Virginia.

An older aunt in Lynchburg will ask you to carry her to church, and she means give her a ride, not lift her over your shoulder.

The word shows up in the Appalachian parts of the state most of all.

Younger Virginians are dropping it, so if you hear it, you’re likely talking to somebody who’s been here a while.

“Bless Your Heart”

Virginians hand this one out like sweet tea, and outsiders always take it as a compliment.

Sometimes it is.

A grandmother in Roanoke says it soft when your dog dies or your car won’t start, and she means every kind word of it.

Then there’s the other version, the one aimed at somebody who just did something foolish.

Said with the right pause, “bless your heart” is the politest way a Virginian will ever call you a fool to your face.

“The Hand”

Drive a back road in Fauquier or Rappahannock County and watch what the oncoming pickup truck does.

The driver lifts a few fingers off the top of the steering wheel as you pass.

Virginians call it giving the hand, and it’s a whole silent conversation.

It says hello, it says you belong out here, and it asks in a friendly way what brings you down this particular road.

Show up with a D.C. license plate and forget to give the hand back, and the whole county files that away.

“Down the Country”

Older Virginians in the Piedmont use “down the country” to point at the rural stretches away from town.

Folks around Leesburg once used it for eastern Loudoun and western Fairfax, back when those parts held few people and even fewer towns.

The phrase never points to a spot you can find on a map.

It just means out yonder, past the last stoplight, where the farms take over.

A Virginian saying it will wave a hand toward the horizon and expect you to know exactly where they mean.

“Mash the Button”

Tell a Virginian to press the elevator button and they’ll look at you funny.

Around here, you mash it.

Mash the button, mash the brakes, mash the remote until the channel changes, all common talk in the western Virginia mountains.

The word carries a little more force than “press,” which suits a region that likes to get a job done.

Outsiders picture somebody flattening the whole thing, but a Virginian just means give it a good push.

“Y’all”

Virginians will defend “y’all” to their last breath, and they’ve got a point.

English lost a good word when it quit separating the singular “you” from the plural, and Virginia fixed the gap.

“Y’all coming to the cookout?” leaves no doubt the whole family’s invited.

Then a Virginian doubles down with “all y’all” when they mean every last person in the room.

Northern transplants swear they’ll never say it, and most of them cave within a year.

“Over Yonder”

Ask a Virginian for directions and there’s a fair chance you’ll get sent “over yonder.”

That might mean down the road, and it might mean clear across the county.

The word comes with a point of the finger that narrows things down, sort of.

Hear “way over yonder” and you should pack a snack for the drive.

To a Virginian, it’s a perfectly good answer, and to everybody else it’s a riddle.

“If the Creek Don’t Rise”

A Virginian ends a plan with “if the creek don’t rise,” and they aren’t checking the weather.

The full version is “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise,” and it means they’ll be there unless something out of their hands stops them.

The saying goes back to a time when a hard rain could flood the low spots and cut a country road in half.

Bridges were scarce across the Virginia backcountry back then, so a swollen creek could keep you home for days.

It’s the Virginia way of crossing your fingers and hoping nothing goes sideways.

“Buggy”

A Virginian grabs a buggy at the Food Lion, not a shopping cart.

The word covers the metal cart you push up and down the aisles, wobbly wheel and all.

“Go get me a buggy” sends a Virginia kid straight to the cart corral out front.

Say “shopping cart” and you’ve marked yourself as somebody from up North the second the words leave your mouth.

Most of the South says buggy, and Virginia holds the line right along with them.

“Out in the Holler”

A Virginian from the far southwest corner might tell you they grew up in a holler.

A holler is a hollow, one of those narrow valleys tucked between the ridges in Appalachian Virginia.

“We live out in the holler, about 20 miles from town,” a Virginian will say, and they mean it.

Whole family lines settled into a single holler and stayed put for generations.

Outsiders hear “holler” and think somebody’s about to shout, when a Virginian is talking about the ground under their feet.

“Burning Daylight”

A Virginian who tells you you’re burning daylight is telling you to quit dawdling and get moving.

The phrase reaches back to a time before much of rural Virginia had electricity, when daytime was the only time to work.

Waste the light and you’d lose the whole day.