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  • RoamingGnome
    +7

    I lived in Virginia for several years. While I was there I learned that the phrase "Bless your/his/her/their heart" is used when you want to insult someone, but you don't want to be held accountable for your actions. So, essentially, you can say anything you want about a person and as long as you follow up with "Bless her heart" you are good to go, no harm, no foul.

    • FivesandSevens
      +5

      I have experienced this quite a few times and I guess I'm too Yankee for it to work on me. IMO, they're not "manners" when you're being rude/condescending, and if they're blessing my heart to be nasty I just return fire as if they'd said what they meant. This made me a minor celebrity among my wife's Louisiana relatives when I barked back at a particularly snooty bless-your-hearter during a family picnic. She turned out to be the dragon lady aunt that everyone was afraid to cross. I had not yet been introduced. She doesn't speak to me now, which is cool because she's a truly miserable person. All the cousins-in-law are jealous too.

    • IridescentOak
      +3

      Yeah, that's more or less the experience in South Carolina, too. The exception here is when a person you're already friends with says it. The tone in that case just means that they're genuinely sympathetic with your situation.

      I've actually experienced more of the nice "Bless your heart"s than than the mean ones, though this could be an effect of the company I keep.