Talking Southern No. 81 : Snakes in the Grass

     Snakes are not your compiler’s favorite creature – by far.   He prefers to give them wide berth rather than killing them, for he knows what good King Snakes do, for example. But he simply cannot help nearly hating the scaly slitherers.

     Apparently, many Southerners generally feel the same, if a judgment can be made on such matters based on language.   While there are many Southern sayings involving snakes, they are all of relatively negative connotation.

    Take “snake in the grass,” for example.  It almost always refers to someone one must watch out for, to someone not to be trusted, someone hiding from sight but waiting to hurt one.   “I wish I liked Old Rupert better, but I think he’s just a snake in the grass,” is an example of how that might be used.   It’s probably not even specifically Southern.

     Or instead, Old Rupert might be plagued by such bad luck that nothing seems to go right for him.  Folks would say he’s “snakebit.”  While your compiler believes “snakebitten” would be the more grammatical way to phrase the thought, just plain “snakebit” sounds pretty ominous and will do just fine for conversation.  Someone who’s “snakebit” could sing the old song from TV’s Hee Haw, “…if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.  Gloom, despair, and agony on me,” with perfect candor and without exaggeration.

      The negative connotation surrounding serpents even extends to children’s stories and legends.   Many of us learned when young that while little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice,”  little boys are made from “snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.”    Your compiler hated that comparison as a kid, and wondered what was wrong with either snails or puppy dog tails.

    Snails, as he learned many years later when he first had the opportunity to taste escargot in the early-1980s, were not only fun to watch creep along in their earth-bound shells, but absolutely buttery and delicious to eat when prepared and served properly.  And puppy dog tails are attached to puppies, and what’s not to love about one of those furry little balls of energy?

    But snakes?   Your compiler didn’t want any part of that. 

    Many years later, when his paternal grandfather was nearing the end of his days, your compiler had opportunity to hear the wise old man give him some advice he has never forgotten.  Your compiler had been treated unconscionably in a recent situation, and the old man, who had grown up in the hills of northeast Georgia, but who’d had the good sense to marry a Brooks girl, rolled out a phrase he’d apparently grown up with.   “Son,” he said gently, “I’m afraid that with some folks you run across in life, you determine pretty quickly they can mean nothing but trouble for you.  You figure out fast that there’s no such thing as a pet rattlesnake.”

    “There’s no such thing as a pet rattlesnake.”  What a meaning-fraught phrase!  May none who read this week’s effusion ever make the tragic mistake of attempting to make a pet of one.  For as a poet once wrote, 

And you would tame a savage breast?
What kind of fool be you?
Twill be the day you breathe your last,
You know this to be true.