WWQP Bulletin Board Chat

ACCENTS

ROSEY, hoooose boooot is far better representation than mine. However, in the community in which I grew up it was pronounced "Nyew Yawk." One greeted one's friends with "gud mawning". I left there at 17 to attend U. MI. married there and went from there to Baltimore (in New Yawk that would be Bawltimauw. There it was Bol'mer. You checked the awl level in your car. Then we went to coastal FL, Clearwater to be precise, and it was a polyglot of Yankees and there is almost no identifiable accent. Fifty miles inland it sounds like GA where they count one, two, three foe. The migrants during the civil war to avoid the draft of the Confederacy came from GA. In AL that number is foa. We knew a couple in which the husband was a native of NJ and the wife came from AL. She was a wonderful, creative art teacher in my kids' school. They loved her but could understand only about 1/3 of what she was saying. The husband said rather lovingly that she was the only person he ever knew who could make a three syllable word out of dog.

Around here the old timers, when they mean to suggest and alternative as in x or y say xy, one. Read one of my favorite books, Cold Sassy Tree about folks in a town in north GA which, from it's description was Commerce, GA. The dialect, even though not strictly southern Appalachian comes pretty close. I can't remember the author's name and unfortunately she died before completing her second book. Cold Sassy Tree is one of my all time favorite books. It's a hoot.

Got out today and even spent about 40 minutes at the gym. It's been a long time and it felt good. Tomorrow I will get to quilt with the girls in the regular Friday group and am really looking forward to it. The studies say that we old folks need not only to be physically active but socially as well to keep all our marbles. I'm basically a gregarious person and those Friday quilt and lunch days are very important to me.

Jane

posted by Jane in NC @ 8:44 PM