Losing My Southern Drawl

Upon meeting somebody new in the region where I live, after I've said about three words, the other person will generally burst into a huge grin and say, "Not from around here, are you?" Even though I've lived in Wilmington, Delaware for 21 years, and in the Midwest for the 6 years before that, I'm still immediately pegged as a Southerner. "Yeah," I confess, "North Carolina, to be exact, 'til college graduation." Guess I've still got a bit of a drawl, although I've tried hard to lose it. Let me explain.

Growing up in North Carolina, we thought it was the Yankees up north who talked funny. Not until I'd returned to N.C. after six months away at my first post-graduation job in Kalamazoo, Michigan did I realize that indeed, it is the Southerners who talk weird. In fact, that initial Christmas back home with my parents made it absolutely clear to me why Southerners are so relentlessly made fun of by everybody else for the way they talk.

Not having heard them for a while, I was shocked to realize that the slow, deliberate, multisyllabic and mispronounced vowels of Southern speech patterns did indeed made them sound like uneducated, backwoods, barefoot, overall-wearin' hicks. That first December evening back, while the vinegar-based-pork-barbeque restaurant waitress was chatting and taking our order, I found myself thinking "Come on! Spit those words out! What's taking you so long?" Not that I didn't still talk like that myself. At least my sense of hearing had sped up in those few initial months up north.

Right then and there I made a New Year's resolution not to talk like a dumb bumpkin anymore. Upon my return to work in Michigan, though, that resolution didn't last long. That first Friday back, while discussing plans with my co-workers, all native New Yorkers, I absent-mindedly asked, "So, what are y'all people gonna do this weekend?"-a very normal statement which might have been said back in my hometown. My Yankee colleagues' eyes immediately bugged out and they nearly fell over laughing. "Y'all people!? What kind of phrase is that?" they howled. Nearly dying from embarrassment, I swore that I'd never say "y'all" again.

Now, almost three decades later, I'm proud to report that I haven't said "y'all" since, except when quoting someone else. I don't even think with the word "y'all" anymore. (Even though "y'all" is a very useful word-more specific than "you" to indicate more than one person.)

Talk slow, eat slow, think slow. It's getting rid of the rest of the Southerner in me that's proving to be difficult. Apparently, my brain was wired during my formative years to function at the languid, drawling, Southern pace. No amount of embarrassment has managed to make my brain tick any faster, nor the words to come out of my mouth more than slightly quicker. The best I've managed to do after all these years, besides no "y'alls," is replace some of the mispronounced Southern vowels with the proper sounding ones, like saying "pen" instead of "pin" for the writing implement, and eliminate some extra Southern syllables, such as "milk" instead of "mee-ulk."

Any speech improvement on my part, however, immediately disappears when talking to my Tar Heel relatives on the phone or when traveling back South. My vowels automatically revert, unneeded syllables reappear, and my words come out slower. I do that consciously to be sure my Southern compatriots will understand me-their brains haven't adapted to even my Delaware-modified speed of talking. I once even had to 'translate' a native Delawarean waitress when my dad was up visiting, even though she spoke perfectly clearly, because her words flew too fast for him to understand.

While I'm trying to sound less Southern, my older daughter, who was born in Indiana, grew up in Delaware, and now lives in New Jersey, tries to sound more Southern. Just from having spent a week or two every year in North Carolina with her grandparents while on vacation, she's adopted some Southern influences. To my amazement, she says "y'all" on purpose, even when surrounded by Yankees. She finds it cute. Once, after getting a flat tire in New Jersey, she called AAA for roadside assistance, and with the best Southern damsel-in-distress drawl she could muster, said "Can y'all send somebody to help little-ole-me?" The truck arrived and the spare was on her car in a New York minute. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm 50 now, so I reckon that if I haven't gotten rid of my Southern drawl speech influences yet, I probably never will. Y'all people around me up north here will just have to bear with me. Oops, sorry. Don't know how that slipped in there.