In my latest fic, my readers have been wondering if I am using the correct phrase.

I'm not sure, since idioms are so regional. I'd appreciate if some of you would vote.

Classicalla said:
Terry Leatherwood said:
So what does the survey say? I'd like to get this right.

And while I'm at it, I know that I should capitalize if I live in the South, but do I capitalize if I live much farther in the South?

Elisabeth

I have always heard "stuck in your craw."

If you use south as a region, it is capitalized, but if you use it as a direction it isn't.

"I live in the South."

"She lives further south than I."

Lisa (a Mississippi girl)

As I recall (from a grandma many many moons ago in Illinois) a craw is another word for crop (as in throat of a chicken.) Therefore it would be 'stuck in her craw.'

Well, I had the very traditional Queens upbringing in the state of Alabama and can't figure out whose idioms are whose most of the time, so it doesn't bother me. I had no idea what it actually meant but I sort of figured 'under my skin', 'under my craw'...

JD

Being the foreigner I am, I didn't know the idiom before. But, like Shadow, I found it easy to figure out the meaning.

What Olympe said.

However, if the idiom is a purely regional one but is not being used by someone who is from that region, it seems jarring. Sort of like Jimmy speaking like Perry.

It matters, too, whether the idiom is used in the narrative or in spoken dialogue. Unless there is something at the beginning of the story that establishes the narrator's voice (sort of like Mary Alice in Desperate Housewives) then best to avoid regional idioms.

This is really much the same issue as used to occur from time to time with respect to "UKisms" in L & C fic.

c.

I've heard of 'stuck in your craw' - like Dandello I've always believed it was a variation of 'stuck in your throat'. Haven't ever heard of 'stuck under your craw', but like others I thought the meaning was clear enough anyway and it certainly wouldn't have confused me seeing it in a story.

ETA: When it comes to narrative, I think regional idioms can often provide extra flavour to a story. It's certainly often been fun for me to learn new ways of saying things from elsewhere in the world as I read. But I would agree that they should never be used in dialogue/introspection for characters who would never know the idiom/don't come from that region. With the exception of course of dialogue where the character is pointing out an idiom as coming from elsewhere. For example:

"In some parts of Scotland, they call this particular kind of day, dreich," Clark said.


LabRat

Oh, LabRat, you've made me laugh!

I was reading your email, and was just musing on how much pleasure I've got (and continue to get) from learning new ways of saying things since I moved to The Near Side Of The Back Of Beyond. And then you inserted:

You know, having spent four hours driving around in the 'dreich' today, I found that both ironic and very amusing.

Chris