Mississippi Man chimed in in the comments below (or someone approximating him, but I'm pretty sure it was actually him. I have ways of knowing, you know) to let me know I was still not quite getting the whole "Bless his/her/your/our/its heart" thing. Apparently it's all in the inflection.
I will now make sure you know that in the post below and the title above, my inflection was that of pitying the idiot. I will work on other inflections (BLESS your heart. Bless YOUR heart. Bless your HEART.) and the facial expressions to go along with them.
In the mean time, I think I must offer one other explanation for not quite getting the importance of this expression, even though I resided in the South (Georgia and South Carolina) for a number of years. The explanation is simple. The most common phrase I remember from my time down there is:
You're not from around here, are ya?
3 days ago
Again—I must apologize, because I am letting you down. I did some research today, talked with some locals and some others in the academic elite… as we are trying to operationally define (for you) this bless ____’s heart phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as I suspected, the phrase (by itself) holds no meaning. The meaning is dictated partially by intonation and inflection, but its true inference comes from the situation or context. (That is, whatever news comes directly before or after this spoken phrase.) Secondly, part of the bless ____’s heart magic is the duplicitous nature of the interpretation. Often, it is the double entendre that holds all the meaning (as hopefully described below).
Example: He just won a million dollars, bless his heart. Meaning: Woot!
Example: Bless her heart, her mother just passed on. Meaning: We feel bad for her.
Example: He always tried to play baseball, bless his heart. Meaning: He was never athletic.
Example: Her husband is a no good cheat, bless her heart. Meaning: Duplicitous. While we sort of feel bad for her, she was always the pretty one that had all the hot guys. Now that her marriage is on the rocks, we feel oddly better about life in general.
I truly hope this helps,
Beth, I'm just now reading the posts on Boston, Brunhilde and the Pig. You've gotta love GPS and local inflection, wherever you find yourself...sheesh! What a great recap! Bless your heart! ROTFLOL. :-)
ReplyDelete