 |
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
 |
Unpack your accents if y'all want to blend in
© St. Petersburg Times Sometimes when I go to paradise (that is, Colorado), I lose track of time and place, which after all is part of the attraction. Repressurizing on my return is always an interesting time and a little confusing, but I had to wonder why my Boston-born Irish wife was sitting across the table from me in a Clearwater restaurant and speaking with the voice of Mary Jane Park. Mary Jane is a colleague and longtime buddy of mine who shares my penchant for Lexington, N.C., barbecue and who has the wonderful silken Southern accent she acquired during her childhood in Salisbury, N.C. She has the refined accent and smooth cadences common to that part of the country and with which I, having spent six years there, am very comfortable. But you don't have to be a dialect expert to know that it is easily distinguishable from Boston-Irish. Park and my wife met only recently, discovered a bond in that they both had dated the same North Carolina politician some years ago and then exchanged God-knows-what kind of information about me. I didn't know that the two of them had gone out to dinner a few nights earlier, and I wondered whether she had had a stroke. "Why are you talking like that?" I asked. "Lahk what," she said, jasmine dripping from the syllables. "Like that," I said. "You just said l'il ole. I have known you for 20 years and you have never before said l'il ole in your life." "Ah don't know what y'all mean," she drawled (that being the first time in the 23 years I have known her that I have ever heard her drawl anything). To make a long story short, my wife, Betty, is one of those people who takes on the accents of those with whom she associates. She is president of a charitable organization with strong roots in Northern Ireland, and, after protracted interaction with others associated with that group, she comes home with a brogue so thick you could whack it with a shillelagh. I think we all do that to an extent. When I am abroad, I am not quite the ugly American who thinks he can make Spaniards understand English by adding -o to every word (even though I have been told my real Spanish isn't much better). I get more nasal in France, more guttural in Germany and, on a trip through Canada a few years ago, I was threatened with death if I ended one more sentence with, "eh?" On the other hand, I get more polite in Canada, which is a plus. Generally speaking, acquiring accents is harmless, although if you are white and male you have to be prepared for some negative reaction from members of ethnic minorities who could assume that you are mocking them or being condescending. Common sense should rule there. It's also a good practice to avoid broad a's when speaking to Harvard graduates, especially if they are your superiors, using the word "nuclear," if you're around anyone who was a member of the Carter administration or is a member of the Bush administration, which has apparently made the word, officially, "nucular," and saying "Cuber," to a Kennedy when you mean Cuba. Which takes me back to my wife, who is a Kennedy (although not directly related to the one who backed down Khrushchev and slept with Marilyn Monroe) whose real-life accent is from Boston. My Southernese and her Boston accent lead to some interesting conversations like: "Where did you pahk?" "In the bedroom, where the suitcase is, of course." She has reminded me that a yawl is a two-masted sailing vessel with the mizzenmast aft of the steering station and won't accept my argument that " "y'all is just as valid an expression as "y'uns.' " My Southern friends tell me I talk like a Yankee. My Northern friends say I sound like someone from the road company of Deliverance. My position, of course, is that I don't have an accent at all, unless I get stopped by a cop I perceive to be a good ol' boy. At which tahm, ah assure you, y'all would just have the gol-durndest time understandin' a word ah said.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
Times columns today Ernest Hooper Jan Glidewell Gary Shelton From the Times North Suncoast desks Letters Letters |
