At a parenting conference in Atlanta, the speaker announced he lost his Southern accent to become a successful lawyer. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed we had been insulted.
You don’t want to sound like Matlock? Why? I think it’s very telling of our nation’s attitude toward the South.
At the park one day, two moms were chatting next to me. My ears perked up when one said something about, “unless you live in Mississippi or Alabama,” and then exploded into laughter.
I forgot I was a Christian for a second and gave her a frozen stare.
You can tell someone’s becoming insecure about their Southern upbringing. It’s in the way they pronounce a long “I.” If we are confident in being Southern, when we say “goodbye” it sounds like “bah.”
All five of my children broke my heart the day they started saying “bie-ee.” They have an excuse for talking like their daddy (originally from Nebraska), but I get sad when I hear Southern children abandoning that rich, beautiful accent. I fear it’s fading away.
My family in the mountains of North Carolina still says “up yonder,” an expression you will find in the King James Bible and in Shakespeare. I loved our Grandma’s sayings, especially “Elt, ah declar!” Translation: “Well, I declare.”
My other grandmother, from Tennessee, had a charming, low drawl, especially when she said L’s. They went on forever. So did vowels. “Wellll,” she’d say when she found out she was right about something, “Ah thouuught.”
If Southerners were not so gracious, we could cry geographic discrimination on how we are treated for the way we speak. Let’s stop buying into the concept that people could be uneducated and incapable, simply based on their speech.
Jennifer Houlihan, who lives in south metro Atlanta, is a military pilot’s wife and blogs at TriumphantChicks.com. This guest column has been edited for space.
Credit: Richard Watkins
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