Folk metaphor: “It’s snowing in the south”

“When my sister and I were younger, uh, probably around middle school age on her part, so around 5th or 6th grade for my part- so, anytime you went out to church, or out to dinner, or anytime you had to dress up, you know you’d be wearing a dress; you’d be wearing a slip. Because you wanted to make sure nothing showed through. You didn’t want the sun shining through your dress. Or your skirt. Anyway. The problem is slips can.. Slip down a little bit sometimes, depending on the length of your skirt, depending on how tight the slip is. Anyway, if you noticed each other’s slip was starting to show underneath the bottom of their dress, you’d kind of just come up next to her or she’d come up next to me and mutter under our breath, “ Hey, um it’s snowing in the south”. And so, that was- you knew your slip was showing and you’d need to go excuse yourself and go fix it.”

Analysis: This folk metaphor seems to stem from perceptions of femininity and modesty and marks a subtle way to tell someone their slip is showing. While it would be inappropriate to declare that the slip has fallen in the middle of a social event, using the folk metaphor avoids tabooistic language and allows the individual to retain their dignity and fix the issue privately. The fact that this was mostly between the informant and her sister may mean that for this individual, this phrase was entirely or at least predominantly used by other women. It likely existed within their vocabulary not only as avoidance of a general taboo, but as a gesture of respect for the other woman and as a means to not draw men’s attention to the issue. The fact that this was muttered or spoken under the breath furthers the emphasis on privacy and dignity, allowing one to compose themselves away from judgement.