Where I grew up a cooter was female genitalia.
Sometimes referred to as chesser, but actually a chest of drawers.
Or caddy corner
Where I grew up, a heavy rain was either referred to as a “gully washer” or a “toad strangler”.
Where I grew up the definition of cooter, predated the Duke’s of Hazzard show. Which is partially why his character was funny.
I first ran across this when I was stationed near Boston. An ad in the paper was for a “chester draws”. Took me a bit to figure out what the hell that was.
I went into a store on a chilly day to buy something. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. The woman behind the counter told me “Y’ah hawdy!” I had to ask her three times to repeat it.
I remember when Dukes came out. I had entered high school and was very aware of what cooters were.
My mom would have washed my mouth with Ivory soap for saying that in her presence.
Hearing it for the time on tv was quite a shock. I certainly snickered during the early episodes.
My wife’s family is from Harlan Co. Kentucky, and they use the term “foundered on” to indicate they were sick of a particular food. As in:
“I used to eat biscuits every morning for three straight years, but I got foundered on them.”
There is a horse disease called “founder”. Which can be triggered by overeating, and especially overeating highly concentrated feeds like grains over less concentrated feeds like grasses or hay.
Decent bet that’s the origin of “foundered on” for the human version of “Ate too much of X for too long; now tired of it.”
Ooh, I bet you’re right. I’ve never heard of that condition, but makes sense to hear it in Kentucky.
“Cooter” as a (southern) nickname goes back over 100 years. Why it’s a nickname is another question, but I’d venture it predates any bawdy meanings.
And I found a death notice for a “Cooter Johnson,” probably an actual given name, although it is a rather not-so-common surname, too. Even found a couple of “Dick Cooters.”
Both uses probably directly derived from late medieval “to founder”, as in “to fail, sink or collapse”.
ETA: @Munch 3 posts up.
All of America 100 to 150 years ago was much more rural and much more centered on animal husbandry. All that is out of sight out of mind for almost all of us now.
But for us here now of retirement age, our grandparents, and their parents lived in a world of home-made stuff and critters. And didn’t get much schoolin’ that would try to have these fine folks imitate the mannerisms of the big city upper crust folks. So lots of slang, colorful sayings, and “lazy” slurry pronunciation.
It’s the American version of My Fair Lady where Eliza Doolittle doesn’t have access to a Prof. Henry Higgins to make her talk all proper.
Somewhat related to the Southern accent discussion.
The British accent is also receeding and less pronounced. Children watching the BBC aren’t hearing the strong, regional British accents.
Same here in the US. My local tv-stations hire journalists from the mid-west states. I can’t remember when I’ve seen local tv news reporters that were born & raised in Arkansas. Speaks the same as I do.
I have nothing to add to this discussion, but I’m fascinated by it. My dad was born in Los Angeles and lived in California nearly all his life. He spoke Japanese nearly exclusively until he was five, then started to learn English in school. And yet he picked up some figures of speech I have always thought were rural in origin, some from the south, some possibly midwestern, and others from who knows where. Describing a hard rain as a “cow pissing on a flat rock” was one of them. Placing something “rightcheer” (but kind of pronounced ‘raht-cheer’) was another. He’s gone so I can’t ask him where he learned a lot of those expressions. Maybe from his two years in the Army, serving with others from all over?
SoCal had a huge invasion of Okies during the Dust Bowl era. A lot of midwestern ruralisms got imported to L.A. along with those folks. Depending on your Dad’s age and where he was living as a child he might’ve gone to school with a lot of those internal migrants’ kids.
Hmm, never thought about that. He was born in 1934 and lived in LA until 1942. I don’t know where the Dust Bowl Okies settled in the LA area, but it’s plausible.
The Okie migration was basically 1934-1940.
Snckers was the name of a much beloved race horse owned by the Mars candy family.
Both my parents were from NW Arkansas Ozarks. I remember that after an event was over instead of saying “we are going home”, they would say " we are going to the house". Small difference but it stuck out to me.
They escaped and raised me in NW Oregon, for which I am forever greatful.
There’s also the possibility, as I noted, that the word was “gooter”. It was 35 years ago, after all.
I say, going to the house, frequently. That is what my older relatives used. Their back door was never locked. I guess they thought thieves only tried the front doors of homes. 
I use going home in written communication.
Saying “the British accent” is kind of pointless and ridiculous. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of British accents. The “BBC accent” is just one of them.