After taking a dip in the lake on a warm July evening, I took Louisa’s hand, and we hiked up to our castle on the hill. Our castle is our home away from home, though some mistake it for a cabin.
When my three-year-old grand and I reached the smooth fieldstone steps, we bumped into Bartholomew. Bartholomew is our resident toad. He lives in his own castle, deep in the cracks between the rocks that form a wall along the back of ours.
“Look, Louisa, there’s Bartholomew,” I said. “He’s come out to say ‘Hello’ to you.”
Louisa crouched low and tilted her head forward to have a better look.
“Can I pat him?” she asked.
“Sure.”
The toddler reached out and lightly stroked the toad’s bumpy back with her index finger.
Bartholomew didn’t hop away until Louisa caressed his leathery skin a second time.
My baby grand giggled when I said, “Wow, Louisa, Bartholomew thinks you’re the berries!”
I shared this story with some friends in South Carolina and discovered they had never heard the expression: “You’re the berries.”
“You’re the berries is the same as telling someone she is the bee’s knees or the bomb.com or, more simply put, the best,” I said.
If you look up the phrase, experts claim it’s slang from the 1920s, not tied to any particular region in the U.S. It says the same thing about “the bee’s knees.”
I beg to differ.
For one, when I related the story of Louisa and Bartholomew to my WV friends, they all knew exactly what “you’re the berries” meant.
For two, the 1920s took place a long, long time before I came into the world, and I am more than familiar with “you’re the berries” and “the bee’s knees.”
Old sayings? Probably. Slang they may be, but both phrases appear to be common in the Mid-Atlantic region. In the South, not so much.
While living in Alabama, Gary and I raised our eyebrows when a neighbor offered to “carry” us in her car to the store.
It was also in Alabama that we heard news reporters say, “A cutting occurred last night around midnight.” “Cutting” as in someone had stabbed (or knifed) someone else.
In Charleston, SC, when I said, “Will you all be joining us at the courts?” a woman replied, “You all? You all? You must be from the north.”
True Southerners say, “Y’all.”
OK. Fake Southerners also say, “Y’all” (bless their hearts), but it’s easy to tell genuine from imitation when it comes to dialect.
West Virginians face the problem of being stuck in between. Northerners consider us Southerners, and Southerners deem us Northerners.
But I know I am a “you all” and not a “y’all.”
Midwesterners also have unique sayings. My hair ties are their hair binders. I would rather when they have their druthers. When I see a baby, I say, “Oh, how cute.” Midwesterners say, “Oh, for cute!”
The Western part of the U.S. claims its own slang to fame. For “all talk and no action,” they say, “All hat and no cattle.” People who talk too much are “jawing,” and a “tenderfoot” is someone in training.
Westerners say, “Don’t squat with your spurs on” and “Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”
Food for thought.
Born in South Carolina, my grand toddler is a true Southerner with West Virginia in her blood. At three, she worked out her own understanding of “You’re the berries.”
While eating breakfast the morning after she met our resident toad, Louisa said, “Vieve, will we see Bartholomew today?”
“I hope so,” I said, “but he doesn’t usually come out this early.”
At that, Louisa smiled at her mom and dad, and said, “Bartholomew thinks I’m the fruit!”
VievesVine 