Y'all Come

Barbara at Life And Faith in Caneyhead did an entry on an AOL article about Southern drawls.  It was a very enjoyable entry. 

I'm from "the country" in Northern Kentucky (North Central Kentucky, which is a completely different animal from North Eastern Kentucky or North Western Kentucky)  There was quite a bit of diversity just within my own family and my parent's families when it came to speech patterns, vernaculars, drawls, etc.  Neither of my parents had/has what I'd call a drawl, and definitely not a Southern drawl.  But my mother used to say dreen instead of drain (as in "letting the dishes drain), and warsh instead of wash.  I've always had an ear for language and a somewhat fanaticism for the English language being used correctly when at all possible, so even before I was old enough to have been taught any better I knew certain words weren't right -- like dreen and warsh.  (But I also learned early on that you didn't correct your mother's language!)  And as I've said before, I was an avid reader of varied genres, and a child in a family of avid readers whose vocabularies reflected that.  I can remember being asked by a classmate when I was an eighth grader if I was from Louisville because I didn't talk like I came from Breckinridge County.  I think that's funny, because I know some people from Louisville who talk with more of a Southern drawl or a country accent than almost anyone I've ever known from my home county.

I had a brother-in-law who would say "clumb" instead of "climbed" and "reched in" instead of "reached in".  His son, my second-oldest nephew, has the only really slow, country drawl of any of my nieces and nephews.  My eldest sister, Dennice, is the only one of us seven who has a slow, country drawl, but none of her children has one.  Well, I take that back.  Her daughter does slightly, but she has lived in Florida for the past 20 years, and her accent sounds more Floridian-country than Kentuckian-country.

We have a good friend who is originally from Missouri (the hills of Missouri) who has a completely different slow, country drawl than my husband's family who live in Alabama.  And actually I have met some of my husband's family from Alabama who don't have what I would call a Southern accent at all. 

And though I'm usually careful about how I pronounce my words, I do adopt some country colloquilisms simply because they feel right.  For instance, I do say y'all (pronounced yawl).  I don't say you-all, or y-all.  And if you are from Louisville, Kentucky or have lived there for years, or if you are from anywhere in Kentucky, you will probably pronounce "Louisville" as "Loo-uh-vull".  You may pronounce it "Loo-uh-vil", but it is not Looey-vil or Loo-us-vil.  Pronounce it one of those two ways, and you're giving away that you aren't from Kentucky!

Go to the hills of Eastern Kentucky and you get into an entirely different dialect.  I worked with a girl from Winchester who said "are" instead of "our", as in "are house" and "are car".  I loved hearing her talk, actually.  When I was in high school I sold Avon, and one of the ladies on my route was originally from Eastern Kentucky.  She would say "hit" instead of "it".  I loved sitting on her front porch and just listening to her talk about her childhood.

When I was about three years old my paternal grandmother would come to our house to stay during the day while her son (with whom she lived) was at work, so my mother could look after her.  She was in her 80s and her health was bad.  One day a friend of ours dropped by, bringing with her some visiting friends of her own.  This friend of ours was just as country as we were, but her visitors were city-folk.  When the visit ended, my grandmother, who had been dozing on and off during the visit, stood and walked them to the door.

"You well'st to just stay the night.  We can put a pallet on the floor."

Our friend politely declined, explaining that her friends had to get on their way back home.  She told us later that the visitors had asked her after they'd left what she meant by "well'st" and what was a pallet?  She explained that "you well'st" meant "you might as well", and that in offering them a pallet, she was offering to make up a bed for them so they could spend the night, even if it was just a "pallet" -- bedding -- put on the floor.  They were charmed by it.

We're just a big old mixing pot of different languages and dialects.  I hope y'all enjoyed this entry.

Tags: Southern drawls, country accents, Louisville, Kentucky, Breckinridge County