Fair to Mitylene

There are many Southern terms that are simply disappearing...similar to the way bones are disappearing from chicken.  One of those is fair to mitylene.

MITYLENE is a name that signifies or is derived from "purity" or "cleansing".  In the South the term is used as such:

Question:  How are you doing?

Answer:  Oh, fair to mitylene.

I may be wrong, but I have heard that fair to mitylene is a term that was used in the production of cotton.  Cotton that was very clean was graded mitylene; fair cotton would be a little less clean; fair to mitylene would be cotton less than perfect, but close to pure. 

There is a community named Mitylene on the eastern outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama, where I grew up.  Actually this community has now been incorporated into Montgomery, but if you ride down I-85 you will still see the signs announcing that you have reached Mitylene.  It is the site of land that was near a huge old cotton plantation.  Small patches of cotton continues to be grown there dotting the countryside with little white patches that somehow look something that dropped there rather than came forth out of the ground.  I have heard that the community was named for the best cotton, the pure cotton, mitylene cotton.  I do not know for sure, but it would make sense that the railroad would have named it in honor of the commerce in the area that would use the rails. 

We frequently, if insincerely, ask folks how they are doing.  "How are you" we say, and often we hope they won't tell us but will politely reply "fine, how are you?"  It's like "have a nice day" and other ice breakers.  Next time someone asks how you are, if you are fairly ok with no major complaints, rather than saying "oh, I'm fine" tell them that you are fair to mitylene.  It will spark sure interest in the state of your well-being, and revive an endangered Southern colloquialism.  

Comments

[Richarde]

Jan, Thank you for shaing your website with me. I have said this phrase often in my life; I heard it from my grandfather, who was a northerner, by the way. But I always thought he was saying, "Fair to middling." Thank you setting me straight!