I lived in Texas from 1973 to 1994. I went to junior high, high school, university and law school in Texas. And I picked up some Texas-isms that not only identify me as a long-time Texan, are also darned difficult to be rid of.
The biggest one, and not really a Texasism but a Southernism, is "y'all." It's that second person plural that we don't have in English. "You guys," "you people" etc. are just not substitutes.
But the second one, at least for me, is "fixin' to."
Here's a definition from the Urban Dictionary:
Generally used only in the state of Texas, 'fixing to' is the equivalent of 'about to' or 'getting ready to'. If used outside of Texas, likely the person using it is from Texas or has spent a great deal of time in Texas. Also, this person will likely be on the receiving end of, "You're... what?"And yes, "You're ... what?" is a typical reaction. I worked at a job in Salt Lake City where every day I'd come out of the upstairs loft and say to everyone that they needed to get off the system, because I was "fixin' to" run the day-end reports. Finally, one day my manager Tillie (who I remember with great fondness) said to me, "Fixin' to? Aren't you just 'about to'?" Which led to a discussion and an admission from me that my mother would probably cringe to hear her university-educated daughter say "fixin' to."
From that day on, I worked hard to get that phrase out of my vocabulary. This process was encouraged by my next job at the tech support desk here in Arizona, because I basically eliminated the remaining Texasisms and acquired Utahnisms in favor of blandissima "standard English." For the most part.
I may not say "fixin' to" anymore, but I've hung on to "y'all" pretty tenaciously and I do like to bring out the Utahnism "ignert" (ignorant) for special occasions, usually involving amazingly stupid politicians.
I'm fixin' to say to y'all: "My, he's ignert."
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