(Slate.com)
It rains cats and dogs in other states.
It some places, it even comes down in buckets.
But only in Florida does rain deserve a murderous euphemism.
Rain drowns the 2015 Honda Classic. (Post photo/Allen Eyestone)
“It’s a toad-strangler out there today, Marge,” Slate.com envisions we Floridians remarking to one another when our thunderstorms blow through with enough rain to drown an amphibian.
The online news magazine has compiled a list of favorite slang words or expressions native to each of the 50 states.
In Florida, our favorite slang word, according to Slate.com, is toad-strangler.
At least it’s got some personality.
It’s certainly more colorful than “ayuh,” which Slate says is taciturn Maine slang for “yes” or Maryland’s dull “hon,” used to address those whose names you don’t know.
People make up slang for what they know. We’ve got the rain, but Montana gets plenty of snow. Hence, the term “graupel” which is Montana-speak for snow arriving in the form of tiny ice balls.
Maybe rain isn’t so bad, after all.
By the way Arizona, you’ve got no lock on the term “snowbird,” despite what the folks at Slate.com say. We’ve got a few of that migratory species down here, too.
The most surprising slang comes from seemingly placid, rational Connecticut, which fears the “glawackus,” a mysterious, fearsome animal of local legend.
(Post photo/Greg Lovett)
For us this time of year, as we grow mold in our armpits from weeks of incessant rain and it’s miserable cousin, humidity, toad-strangler isn’t a bad description of the waterworld in which we’re living.
But then, so is frog-pounder, which could give toad-strangler a run for its linguistic money.
Long-time Floridians might describe out summer storms either way, but more likely, as “more %#$& rain.”
But that’s a slang word we’re not allowed to print.
