WHEEZE AND WHEN

I’m rushing to get over a cold before Our Girl comes to visit tomorrow, and my system is full of everything you can buy over the counter in a capsule, big ole chalky horse-pill pushed out of a blister-pack, and icy lozenges to melt under your tongue. I cringe as I open the fridge, for that’s where the oozy cough syrups live, and my tongue is ablaze and numb all at once, from a constant residence of a Hall’s in my mouth. This year there was no Vicks’ SAAAAAVE for I just didn’t think of it, and it kinda icks me out after all those years of hot flannel and that gooey camphor.

So I may be wandering a bit, but I thought of a couple of little Southern things I’d been meaning to ask about/define/mention.

There are some little Southern phrases regarding time which confound those who haven’t been accustomed to them. Both reference future time, and even in the South, there are two contingents for one of them---like the Big and Little Endians cracking an egg.

Folks say either, “They’re coming to visit Tuesday,” which to me means the-very-next-Tuesday-on-the-calendar. Proponents of calling that “Next Tuesday” confuse me all to heck, for when they say, “They’ll be here next Tuesday,” I’ll miss the whole thing, for to me, NEXT TUESDAY is the one after THIS Tuesday. They'd have to say "the next Tuesday there IZZZZ," for me to get it right.

Even in families, depending on the clans they married into, there are sometimes confusion and missed events and even downright arguments, for each side KNOWS their phrasing to be the right one. And the little Bledsoe girl’s word-of-mouth-in-fourth-grade birthday party will occasion many a frantic phone call to see exactly WHEN the party is, with ruffled feelings on both sides over which-phrase-means-which and tears on hers when several of her absent guests later insist that the party was NEXT WEEK. Their Mamas said so.

And the other little idiom is in reference to tomorrow. “Is your appointment in the morning?” almost always leaves “or afternoon?” implied, as in morning vs. afternoon.
But if you say “IN-NA Mornin’” it ALWAYS means tomorrow.

“Do you want to go in the morning?” is “Shall we depart before noon?” but “Do you want to go IN-NA Mornin’?” means departure tomorrow, but implies your choice of any other day you’d choose.

I’d love to hear what the different phrasings mean to YOU, in your own part of the world.

Hope I haven’t muddled you too much; gotta finish up all this Clorox-wiping to get ready for Herself coming IN-NA mornin’.