I might could bless your heart

Every southerner is familiar with the phrase bless your heart. Traditionally we use it when some tragedy has befallen you and we feel sorry for you but at the same time we're glad we're not in your shoes. If for instance you tell someone who was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line about how you were buying groceries for your ailing grandmother that person might answer back bless your heart. Likewise if you go on to talk about how when you got to Grandma's she was hunched over the toilet puking from a Jack Daniels hangover they might answer back well, bless her heart.

See how it works?

It also sometimes has a more backhanded connotation especially when referring to someone in the third person. In a coffee clatch one woman might say to another something like Did you see how homely that girl was? She'll never get a husband, bless her heart. This is an especially useful turn of phrase in this circumstance because it works like a linguistic washcloth, rinsing away any negativity someone might have otherwise taken as insulting. You can say just about anything bad about a person, and as long as you follow it up with bless their heart, you're in the clear. Kinda like the way some people use the follow-up phrase I don't mean that in a bad way, Southerners will sometimes use Bless their heart.

Still another way to use the phrase, and frankly this is the most condoling, is to bless someone's little heart. It works for adults and children alike; anyone's heart can be qualified as little. Saying something like well, bless her little heart means you honestly feel sorry for her and you want to convey that to the person you're talking to. When you say this, you leave no question as to how sincere you are.

Heart blessing is particularly southern much like grits and bible thumping. That's why I was caught offguard the other day when after telling my yankee mother-in-law over the phone that my daughter was sick, she responded with bless her little heart. Now, truth be told my wife's family is from Ohio, and they think that because they're not from the New England area that they're not yankees, bless their hearts, but in the South anyone who's not from the South is pretty much a yankee. I'm sorry, y'all, that's just the way it is.

Anyway, my mother-in-law who's only lived in Georgia for less than a year said bless her little heart. She not only used a phrase that up until recently I'd guess really wasn't a part of her vocabulary, she used it just like a native would. In fact, it didn't dawn on me that she said bless her little heart until afer I hung up the phone with her. The woman's just that good.

It's beneficial to add a few regionalisms to one's speech when visiting a new part of the country I think. Also learning some courtesy phrases in a foreign language can come in handy both abroad and here at home. I'm no Rosetta stone, but I can say hello, goodbye and thank you in several languages. I don't use them to show off, but I do find that native speakers are more polite to me if I mutilate their language by trying out the occasional friendly phrase on them. This is especially true for Asian languages. If you say hola to a Spanish speaker they just think you let Dora the Explorer babysit your kid for hours at a time. But if you say to a Korean speaker, their eyes light up like a winter holiday tree.

I have to hand it to my wife's mom. Whether she did it on purpose or just unconsciously adopted the phrase after hearing it around town she fooled me into thinking she sounded local. Once her granddaughter is feeling better, I'll call to let her know. As quick a study as I reckon she is, when I call she'll probably tell me that she was fixin' to carry my father-in-law up to the store so he can pick up a possum and some sweet potato pie. When I ask her if I can ride along, she'll say you might could.