Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Two minor points

1. There's a decent amount of farming going on where I live. This is not terribly new to me, Oregon has a lot of rural areas. Of course, what's different is what's grown. Oregon's all about seed, really. But you'll also see a lot of fun crops like strawberries and grapes. Here, I have tobacco fields growing literally across the street from my house.

 

The other day I decided to check the plants out, despite my fear of maybe being shot. Tobacco plants are really kind of pretty, with giant, crepey leaves. And since Bath and Body Works makes that really lovely fragrance called "Tobacco Flower," I assumed the pink flowers would smell good. They didn't smell like anything. I was pretty disappointed.




2. There are a few things that people out here say differently. Roomie says "cut on," in addition to saying "cut off." As in, "will you cut on that light for me?" This makes no sense to me, but he says it's a totally normal thing to say. They also use not just double negatives, but double-positives. As in, "how will we handle this situation? Well, we might could handle it this way ..." Well, maybe the "might" isn't a full positive, but a possible positive. Does that mean a "might could" is, like, a positive-and-a-half? Am I even making sense anymore?

Anyway, that was all a lead-in to one really adorable thing southerners say: they use the word "buggy" instead of "shopping cart." Isn't that cute?

They also, really, genuinely call people "yankees." I mean, I guess I knew that they did, but it still makes me giggle every time I hear it.