Saturday, July 28, 2007
Non-Regionalisms (Some things are just wrong, no matter where y'all are frum)
A local friend of mine who is very intelligent and possessed of a wide vocabulary happens to be from the north and spends more time than I care to hear putting down the south, southerners and so forth. I have asked her to refrain from doing this, as I am quite southern and nobody’s fool, and once I told her that if she has such disdain for this place and its people, Delta’s ready when she is. If you are southern and you make fun of southerners, you are perceived by us as clever and self-effacing (it’s always good to be able to laugh at oneself, whether oneself is an individual or a group); if you are not southern and you make fun of southerners, you are perceived by us as hostile. (This is usually where the term “Damn Yankee” rears its ugly head.)
This same friend was pontificating on her vast vocabulary and usage thereof, which is usually quite extensive, when she started bragging about her careful and masterful proNOUNciation of words. That turned me on my ear, and while I do not make a habit of correcting people’s grammar or the way they pronounce something, I just couldn’t ignore this in the face of her braggadocio on the subject, and I told her, “Excuse me, but I think you mean proNUNciation.” She, of course, would not be dissuaded and blew it off as, “Oh, that’s probably just a southern thing.” I hastened to correct her and said, “No, it’s a dictionary thing.” Because one of our favorite pastimes is playing “Upwords” (in which we are quite equally matched), we usually have a dictionary along when we play, and I shoved it at her and said, “Read it and weep.” She also disputes my claim that “ladle” (as in gravy) should be pronounced to rhyme with “cradle” instead of rhyming with “paddle”, as she says it. I suspect she will go to her grave convinced that that, too, is a southern thang, and I told her not to blame me if she was up Shit Creek without a laddle.
This same friend was pontificating on her vast vocabulary and usage thereof, which is usually quite extensive, when she started bragging about her careful and masterful proNOUNciation of words. That turned me on my ear, and while I do not make a habit of correcting people’s grammar or the way they pronounce something, I just couldn’t ignore this in the face of her braggadocio on the subject, and I told her, “Excuse me, but I think you mean proNUNciation.” She, of course, would not be dissuaded and blew it off as, “Oh, that’s probably just a southern thing.” I hastened to correct her and said, “No, it’s a dictionary thing.” Because one of our favorite pastimes is playing “Upwords” (in which we are quite equally matched), we usually have a dictionary along when we play, and I shoved it at her and said, “Read it and weep.” She also disputes my claim that “ladle” (as in gravy) should be pronounced to rhyme with “cradle” instead of rhyming with “paddle”, as she says it. I suspect she will go to her grave convinced that that, too, is a southern thang, and I told her not to blame me if she was up Shit Creek without a laddle.
Labels: Language
Call of the Wild Child
I'm happy to report that I have heard nothing more from Kristie in almost two months now. Perhaps Officer A's call did the trick. Hooray! Now I only have to worry about the next time her meds don't last until the end of the month.
Labels: Nutty Neighbors
