State

The Pleasures Of Tar Heel Speech Our Southckrn forefathers ilcvi‘lo|H‘il the art of conversation to a degree not reached elsewhere in Ihe \ation. By CUV OWK\ Recently Tom Wicker, who grew up as a good ole boy in Hamlet, wrote in the New York Times that Southerners are getting tired of having Northerners make fun of our talk. The same week Arthur Godfrey made an ill-considered remark about grits, and there were defensive editorials all over the South suggesting that he was lower than a snake’s belly button or that he should mend his manners. (Certainly no one will ever invite him to a ramp festival or chittlin' strut.) You would have thought that Mr. Godfrey was H. L. Mencken and had labeled us “The Sahara of the Во all over again. Tar Heels are inordinately proud of being a "vale of humility between two mountains of conceit." Hut certainly when it comes to our folk speech, and that of the South in general, we have every reason to be proud — Arthur Godfrey and H. I,. Mencken not¬ withstanding. I have written a number of novels and stories in Tar Heel dialect, including "The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man” and the forthcoming “The Flim-Flam Man and Other Stories." and. in addition. I have col¬ lected samples of North Carolina folkspeech from Murphy to Manteo. In fact. I have had a fifty-year love affair with Southern speech, and I will not stand around with my foot in my hand while our native language is being bad-mouthed or slurred by Yankees. I intend here to tender a few remarks on my own. though I can only scratch the surface of what I consider a fascinating subject. Talk Was Cheap I don't want to begin by making any exaggerated claims, but Donald Davidson, one of the Vanderbilt Fugi¬ tives. once wrote that before the Civil War. Southerners developed the art of conversation to a degree not reached elsewhere in the nation. We were too poor to produce great composers, ar¬ chitects or painters; besides, wc had no models to follow. However, talk comes cheap, so we entertained our¬ selves with stories — anecdotes and tall tales — developing the masterful yarn spinners later referred to as Southwestern humorists. That is. folk %vho told stories for the delight in tell¬ ing them — not for a moral or other ulterior purpose. At the same time, we showed more than the usual respect for orators — lawyers, ministers, teachers — anyone who could "tie a knot in the King's F.nglish" or use words that "would choke a billy goat." And. 1 suspect, we still take the King James Version closer to heart then the rest of the country, which no doubt influences in subtle ways our speech, as well as our behavior. Old-Time Flavor Whether this is true or not — and I think it is — there still remain some remnants of our native antebellum talk, and it sets our speech apart from that of other sections of the country. Let me suggest a few of its qualities as they occur to me. together with a few illustrations. To begin with, in North Carolina we have retained certain distinctive words that flavor our talk. ( )ld-timers still use words like tolerable, traipse, gallivant and piazza. In the mountains you can encounter creasy solid t salad of cres¬ "... I p«ef e« ih* folk ol good ol* boy» ol о crosvoodi *to it . . . ro thot о» о ooti»* о» lb* Bfon« Of Borboro Woltea. »hi<K it о bout ot too» King ot to nd paper on the eardrums . . (Впкс Roberts Photo) ses). feme nl I against I and crccyon (crayon). Our Outer Bankers (called simply Bankers) continue to refer to "hoi toid." etc. In my home county of Bladen, you hear earwig for centipede and Jtredogs for andirons; and some families still serve sillabub at Christ¬ mas anti hopping-john at New Years. Further. Tar Heel talk, like Ameri¬ can speech in general, has always been democratic, welcoming words and phrases from every possible source. Negroes have added many words to our vocabulary, such as cooler (turtle) and goober (peanut), to say nothing of jazz, goofer dust and root doctor. The Indians gave us senppernong. yaapon tea and such beautiful place names as Catawba. Rowan and Ocracoke. From the Welsh we took Booger or Bogey Man. and the Moravians gave us love feast. No doubt these arc enough ex¬ amples to suggest that not all of our words and expressions derive from the English and Scotch- Irish, who were, of course, the main settlers of North Car¬ olina. In fact, our language indicates that we are a good example of the American melting-pot. Easy On The Fair It would be difficult to prove that Southern speech is the most poetic in the nation — though I’m convinced THE STATE. JAMUAHV 1984 s