I was having lunch with my friend Mary Catherine when she said something that almost offended me. She looked me dead in the eye and said “well when you get home and get done with all your rat killing just give me a call.”

I was so taken aback and asked her to repeat herself.

After I realized she said what I thought she said, I said “you really think I have rats in my house?”

Of course, she laughed and through the laughter tried to explain that it was a southern saying. It shouldn’t surprise me that a woman with two first names is coming at me with all kinds of southern sayings. She spent the rest of the day texting me southern sayings that had me laughing.

I took my social media to ask if anybody had ever heard the term “rat killing” before and I was surprised to see how many of my friends use the term quite often. One thing I do love about living in the south is how we will say the darndest things and it will be totally normal to everybody around us.

Although I am from California, when people ask me where I’m from it’s much easier to say Louisiana. I realize if I want to keep saying I’m from Louisiana there are many terms that I need to learn.

I took the liberty of reaching out to my friends on social media to ask them about the southern terms or southern saying that their family members used or that they use on a regular basis. Let’s just say today was a learning experience. Here are the terms that shocked me and made me laugh the most.

Hilarious southern sayings we can all bring back:

"They can’t tell the difference between your a$$ and your elbow”

“You’re like a bull in a China cabinet”

“Can’t ride two horses with one a$$”

“Finer than a frog's hair”

"Running around like a chicken with its head cut off" (I had heard this one before!)

"It’ll all come out in the wash" (I had also heard this one before)

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"

"You don’t jack $hit from wild honey"

"He’s as useless as tits on a bore hog"

"We’re living in high cotton"

"If the creek don’t rise and the rapture don’t come"

"Madder than a wet hen"

"Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater"

"Don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of"

"Faster than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition"

"I am going to jerk a knot in your tail"

"Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit"

"He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down"

"I’m so hungry I can eat the north end of a southbound mule"

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Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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