I spent the last few days in Texas. I didn't take this photograph, but I wish I had. Thanks for snapping it and sharing it, Chris aka @blueneurosis (whose Flickr stream is here).

  • lj

    That’s a fine sign.

    This one makes me smile on the way home from Auckland (NZ)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/landed/2755506697/

  • Anonymous

    HONEY-JAM-JELLY-MELONS

    I always look for this one on my way down to Dallas for A-Kon.

    I should get a snap of it next year.

    I do have a wonderful photograph stowed away somewhere…

    “Re-Elect Sheriff Jack Daniels” got that one in Coffeyville Kansas. I really need to locate and post it.

  • Anonymous

    My Texas photo:

    http://imgur.com/Tf6m5

    I think it is actually more representative of what goes on around here.

  • jeligula

    I saw a driver’s license owned by a guy who lived on Stateline Road on the Oregon/California border. His valid street address was Third House on the Right, Stateline Road, OR.

  • Anonymous

    And the plural of “y’all”? “All y’all”, of course…

    • Anonymous

      um…y’all is the plural…2nd person…

  • Anonymous

    In Minnesota and similar areas around the Great Lakes, bait shops PROUDLY advertise their

    CRAPPIE BAIT

    OK, if you’re from there, the first word, a type of pan fish, is pronounced Crop-ee. If you’re not from there, the pronunciation is different until you learn better…

  • Jack

    Here in NYC I always run into signs in stores that basically say: WE HAVE [THING]. Such as WE HAVE EGGS!, WE HAVE BREAD! or WE HAVE MILK!

    Never GOOD or DANG GOOD just WE HAVE!

  • Anonymous

    Well, I still say the most unusual sign I’ve ever seen was outside of Leakey, TX.

    FRED AND LISA’S

    FISH

    AND SNOW CONE.

    Seriously.

    • Shelby Davis

      I see your sno cone and raise you a roadside filling station on the edge of the pine jungle in the Florida panhandle:

      ICE CREAM
      AND
      LIVE WORMS

      I’m not sure if one was supposed to enjoy the confections before or after baiting the hooks, but is also totally wasn’t unusual to walk into a gas station and find one of those floor-freezers open to the air and filled, not with TV dinners, but crickets.

  • fnc

    But seeing this picture makes me want fried catfish (even though that’s not strictly a Texas thing).

    And for the record I believe “ya’ll” would be more correctly a contraction of “you will”. E.g. : “Ya’ll regret pickin’ that thing up.”

    • mccrum

      But, in the local parlance, it could just as easily be “You all regret pickin’ that thing up”

      I’m going to quote some sources of “y’all,” those that believe it to be “ya’ll” can do the same and we’ll see whose sources are more widely accepted.

      Merriam Webster:
      http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/y%27all

      Dictionary.com
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/y%27all

      Common Errors in English Usage, 2nd Edition:
      http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/yall.html

      And Y’ll, the magazine of Southern People:
      http://www.yall.com/

      And, of course, fifteen years in South Carolina dealing with this exact conversation when I moved down there and being told, definitively, by my English teacher nevertheless, that it is, was, and will be “y’all.”

    • defunctdoormat

      That doesn’t sound correct in that sentence. It sounds, as written, as if you’re saying ‘You all (currently) regret pickin’ that thing up.’

      It SHOULD be written y’all’ll. Pronounced with an extended ll sound.

      • Felton

        I agree, and I believe there’s a slight holding of the /l/ sound to differentiate between “y’all” and “y’all’ll.” Heh! As if I’m the ‘enry ‘iggins of the South.

      • Felton

        I just noticed you already mentioned the extended /l/ sound. Waiter! More coffee!

  • Brainspore

    Shoot, the right side of the sign fell down again. It actually says

    DANGER: TEXAS AHEAD
    GOOD LUCK ALL YOU
    CANDYASS TOURISTS!

    • Felton

      Heehee!

  • Anonymous

    San Antonio is not always “San-Antone” It is also “San Anto” (Preferably followed by “Holmes”) and Texas is not a part of the South. It is Texas.

  • Anonymous

    grew up in Waco where y’all is standard… during a four year stint in Knoxville, TN I was driving with a friend out to the sticks, we stopped at a thrift store(well, it was really a thrift tent) and this guy with what seemed to be three rows of teeth came up to us and said… “can I hep yuns”. the first thing that came out of my mouth was “What the f@ck is a YUN”?

  • lectroid

    On one of the roads from Chicago to Milwaukee is (or was) a filling station which, in the store half where one might normally expect chips and coffee, old furniture and such. The sign outside proclaimed:

    ANTIQUE GAS

    And, in an unremembered location along Rt 1 in California, there is the more notable (and decidedly less appetizing):

    ANTIQUE
    CHEESE

  • Anonymous

    it’s “y’all” — short for “you all”

  • Anonymous

    I live in DFW and my family live in Amarillo and I’ve seen this sign several times on the drive!

  • Anonymous

    Gotta remember to exaggerate and stretch out those vowels when here in Texas. You don’t ask a danged fool if “…something’s wrong in his head.” No, you ask him (or insist, rather) “…something’s wrong in his heyyud.”

  • Felton

    Strangely enough, I’m from Georgia, and I say “you guys” instead of “y’all.”

  • Xeni Jardin

    It’s definitely y’all.

    And I was born and raised in “the south,” and Texas is definitely its own thing! Though we do have some things in common.

    Even their biscuits are not like ours!

    • DanC

      Mmm, biscuits.
      I could go for some biscuits and gravy right now.

    • liquis

      Yeah Texas has so much metropolitan to it amidst vast space, and it acts as a sort of gateway (or in between world) to the west. Indeed west Texas *is* the west in many respects. Texas is also just too big to generalize in any way. People who try and generalize or assume things about Texas are usually subject to their own illusions due to not spending any good amount of time here.

      Another interesting element is the Texas triangle megapolis, which separates itself from other regions.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis_%28city_type%29#North_America

      I love that page… It’s a way of thinking of regions and cultural gravity without state borders.

      - Lived in Houston most of my life.

      • johnocomedy

        Interesting that Houston is the only city to appear in two Megalopolii. Yet another reason for us Texans to brag

  • Felton

    My favorite alternate pronunciations involve moving the accents to different syllables, as in “po-lice” and “in-surance.” I also used to love it when one of my old friends would say “sigh-reen” for “siren.”

    • Phikus

      …And don’t forget its the TEEvee.

      • Felton

        Absolutely! I also just remember how my grandma Juanita used to pronounce her favorite drink, Coca-Cola: ko-KO-luh!

        • Felton

          “Remembered,” that is. Why does my typing go to Hell when I do this from work? Is it because work is Hell? Or maybe my keyboard is from Hell.

  • friendpuppy

    Alert: Steakhouse!

  • Anonymous

    Also when in Texas remember..anything ending in ING the g is always silent. Example: pudding = puddin, walking = walkin and so on. When you see a pecan tree it’s pronounced Pacon. It’s a buggy not a shopping cart. And if your north, east or west of Texas you are a yankee. If you are south you are a Mexican. If anyone tries to tell you that they wash their sheep in Woolite it’s not so it will shrink.

  • Anonymous

    @Felton, my recently departed dear ol’ Dad used to say I-talians, but pronounced Italy normally.

    My brothers say “How do?” instead of “Howdy”(“how do ye do”

    The use of the phrase “Fixin’ to” (in lieu of ‘going to’) usually marks someone as a Texan.

    Y’all gotta remember though, Texas has at least 4 to 5 different regional accents within its borders. Most people think of the hard West Texas twang instead of an East Texas drawl.

    • Felton

      Y’all gotta remember though, Texas has at least 4 to 5 different regional accents within its borders. Most people think of the hard West Texas twang instead of an East Texas drawl.

      True. It’s too huge not to have that kind of variety, I’d say. The first time I drove east-to-west through Texas, by the time I got to El Paso I though “damn, am I really still in the same state?”

    • Anonymous

      “How do?”

      lol, that’s the pronunciation in certain parts of the UK. Off the top of my head I can’t place it, but the accent in my mind is perhaps Yorkshire, or maybe rural Manchester?

      Someone may correct me.

      Incidentally if you have no audio reference they would sound completely different – it’s the vast difference and specificness of this phrase that make this fact amusing to me.

  • Brian Boyko

    I miss Texas so much..

  • internetbureau

    whehehehe looks great there!

  • Anonymous

    haha i love your fight over how y’all/ya’ll is spelt!!!! im from ireland so we dont use that over here but i love the american slang!!!! y’all are cool ;)

  • mgfarrelly

    For years, heading up to Wisconsin from Chicago (off the interstate) we’d pass one of the million or so cheese shops that dot the border. The sign looked just like your find but it read

    DAMN
    FINE
    CHEESE

    The whole car would loudly shout the sign. It marked our 1/3 of the way point on family vacations.

  • bamassippi

    And like all Texan towns, a Diary Queen within a stones’ throw.

  • transplantedbuckeye

    A friend of mine actually owns this store. It is a fantastic place located in Chillicothe, Texas. A really cool story about how they got started in the pecan/candy business can be found on their website. If you are between Dallas and Amarillo on 287, it’s a must stop for all your Texas needs! :-) http://valleypecans.com/

  • igpajo

    That’s one of those things I’d just have to stop and check out.

  • Rob Beschizza

    Minimalist graphic design! Only

    DANG
    GOOD
    BEER
    YALL

    in a perfect 4×4 grid Would have been more perfect.

    • querent

      “ya’ll” is spelled as I just did. with an apostrophe.

      • querent

        the south forgives you, of course.

      • Anonymous

        It’s “y’all,” not “ya’ll.” (Short for “you all,” not “ya’ll all.”)

      • strangefriend

        Actually, it’s spelled ‘y’all.’ I was born & raised in Houston, Texas.

        And here is a pronunciation guide:

        BEXAR County is ‘Bear’ County;

        SAN ANTONIO is ‘San Ann tone’;

        REFUGIO is ‘Re fury o’;

        In Houston, KUYKENDAHL St. is ‘Kirk en doll.’

        Not that it matters.

        • cowtown

          Actually, it’s spelled ‘y’all.’ I was born & raised in Houston, Texas.

          And here is a pronunciation guide:

          BEXAR County is ‘Bear’ County;

          SAN ANTONIO is ‘San Ann tone’;

          REFUGIO is ‘Re fury o’;

          In Houston, KUYKENDAHL St. is ‘Kirk en doll.’

          Not that it matters.

          And also:
          BUDA is ‘bud-duh’
          MONTAGUE is ‘mon-tayg’
          ITALY is ‘it-lee’
          CELINA is ‘suh-lye-nuh’
          LLANO is ‘lan-no’
          SEGUIN is ‘suh-geen’
          EDINBURG is ‘eden-burg’
          HARLINGEN is ‘har-len-jin’
          IRAAN is ‘ira-ann’

          Lord only knows how many more I’ve forgotten or never had the misfortune to utter aloud in front of my native-Texan wife.

          • johnocomedy

            actually Buda is BYOO-duh
            It’s a game we Texans play called “spot the yankee”. Here’s some more for y’all to brush up on if yer fixin’ to come visit.

            Guadalupe = GWAH-duh-loop
            Manchaca = MAN-shack
            Burnet = BURN-it
            Manor = MAY – ner
            Mueller = Miller
            Gruene = green

            Y’all’re welcome

        • Chesterfield

          And unlike in NYC, Houston doesn’t rhyme with mouse-ton.

          • mccrum

            That’s cause it’s a different Houston. William Houstoun in fact.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Houstoun_%28lawyer%29

            We just can’t spell, that’s all.

            We do have your General Worth (of Fort Worth) however, buried in the second smallest cemetery in Manhattan by Madison Square Park.

          • Antinous / Moderator

            And why isn’t Soho pronounced so-how?

          • mccrum

            Because the brokers thought up SoHo in the first place and we all know they’re all a pack of idiots.

          • Felton

            I prefer General Zod’s pronunciation: Whoston.

      • LeSinge

        Not being from the south and not using the phrase I have no dog in this fight, but it’s more common to see “y’all” than “ya’ll” (just check Google).

        Makes sense since it’s a contraction of “you all.”

        The Wikipedia entry for it even brings up this point.

        • Felton

          In Georgia I’ve only had one argument over the spelling. “Ya’ll” was outvoted 3 to 1 in favor of “y’all.” The guy in favor of “ya’ll” was the only one not from the south. I can’t remember why the subject came up among a bunch of engineers and lab techs. Hopefully they weren’t going to put “y’all” in a report.

  • holtt

    Almost as good as “Beaver Nuggets” I bet!

  • Gridwolf

    EAT HERE AND GET GAS