You don’t have to talk old-fashioned,
dress old-fashioned.
You don’t have to live the way your fore
fathers lived.
But if you don’t know about them
if you don’t love them
if you don’t respect them
you’re not going anywhere.

“The Briar’s Sermon,” Jim Wayne Miller

Reading Esther Godfrey’s recent column on dialect brought back a flood of memories. Growing up in Rhodes Cove in Jackson County during the 1940s provided me with an experience that resembles Esther’s in some respects, but it was also considerably different. That difference prompts me to relate my own cycle from an ungrammatical heathen to a literate teacher — and then back again. However, to put the matter in the proper context, I need to go back a piece.

My father was a mountain musician who owned a little Esso service station in the section originally called Moody’s Bottom. The station, called “Happy’s Place” because of my father’s genial disposition, was always filled with fiddlers and banjo players. These fellows pumped gas and changed the oil when the need arose, but mostly they played mountain music. The station drew quite a crowd in the summer.

My father was murdered when I was 2 years old. The man that killed him was a local drunk stewed on wood alcohol who simply entered “Happy’s Place” with an old rusty pistol and shot my father in the head. The shocked witnesses allowed him to escape; however, he was captured shortly afterwards. He retained no memory of the shooting.

My mother, a frightened little mountain girl who was ill-prepared to raise a child, took me to my paternal grandparent’s home one morning, left me on the front porch and caught the bus for Knoxville. When she didn’t return, my grandparents accepted the fact that they had “a young’en to raise.” Although they readily accepted this chore, they were a bit anxious, and with good reason. They were elderly, and I had already exhibited signs of being “quare,” a condition they attributed to bad blood (from my mother’s side of the family, of course).

Now, we come to the language. My grandparents, both of Scots-Irish stock, spoke a dialect that would be virtually incomprehensible today. In addition, their conversation was filled with archaic words and phrases that dated back to 17th century Ireland, and in some instances pre-dated Chaucer.

My grandfather “bussed” (kissed) babies, and my grandmother “nussed” (nursed or petted) them. Slim people were “gant,” and healthy ones were “stout.” Churned milk “clabbered” and spoiled milk became “blinky.” All of this was spoken with a nasal twang, an abundance of dropped “g’s” and an excess of “a’s” before verb forms (“a-walkin” ‘n a-talkin’”). Now, wrap all that up in a generous amount of English, Irish and Scottish folklore, custom and superstition, and you have my home life.

When I arrived at school, I was something of an enigma to my teachers. They had trouble understanding me. Certainly, all of the children were mountain kids and spoke with nasal twangs, but I had the added disadvantage of being raised by my grandparents. “I’s peak-ed,” I told my teachers when I didn’t feel well. By the time I was in high school, many of my teachers had given me the same advice: “Change the way you talk, Gary. Unfortunately, that kind of language is associated with ignorance and backwardness.”

I’m sure my teachers meant well; most teachers do. However, this was the beginning of a lifetime spent in dealing with the consequences of language. In effect, I was “weighed and found wanting.” In college, the advice became more strident. Western Carolina Teachers College (now WCU) was committed to adequately preparing teachers for the southeastern United States, and since the majority of their students in the 1950s came from a 150-mile radius of Cullowhee, they had mountain twangs. As a consequence, a vigorous effort was implemented to eradicate “regional dialect” in potential teachers. I remember a speech teacher from New Jersey who never tired of giving lectures on our “lazy i’s and e’s.” I was subjected to dialect tapes which I had to play at home, dutifully repeating the vowels and stressing final “g’s.”

In effect, I was given to understand that my language was unacceptable in polite society. Young people of my generation had a profound respect for teachers. If a teacher said it, it was true. In time, I became self-conscious about my accent and gradually became ashamed of it. My determination to “speak correctly” led to my becoming a speech major — a field that I embraced largely because I loved theatre, but due to the utilitarian demands of education, drama was not an acceptable major. Speech and Drama was! The two fields were like Siamese twins joined at the hip, both incapable of living without the other.

While I was a student at WCTC, the college acquired a noted dramatist and playwright with a background in professional theatre and film. We were enthralled by her and became fervent disciples. Unfortunately, she had an aversion to our speech — I once heard “shuddered” when we spoke — and especially when we did Noel Coward, Shaw or Shakespeare. More dialect tapes were in the offing.

During the 15 years that I taught, I became adept at “speaking proper English.” There were occasions when I slipped, usually when I was excited or angry, and I would slid effortlessly into my natural twang. The results were always the same — I noticed that people’s attitude toward me changed. Again, I was weighed and found wanting — not on the basis of my capabilities or my credentials, but because of the manner in which I spoke. So, I became a kind of Jekyll and Hyde  speaking two languages (sort of a Sean Connery vs. Gomer Pyle combination), one for the classroom and another at home or with my friends.

While teaching at Lees-McRae in the 1970s, our English Department had a visitor from the Smithsonian Institute. He told us that he lived in Boston, and that he had been dispatched to the mountains of Western North Carolina to make dialect tapes. He said there were still people living in remote areas who spoke a dialect dating back to Shakespeare and Chaucer, and he was collecting it. He played a few tapes and I was astonished. Here was a voice that sounded like my grandfather talking about planting, seasons and sickness. “Listen to that!” said the man from the Smithsonian, his face rapt and smiling. “That dialect, those words!” He concluded by saying that such language was “a rich, cultural heritage.” I had never heard it called that. No, I was told that it was associated with “ignorance and backwardness.” The Smithsonian had found merit in what I had gone to considerable trouble to erase.

My ex-wife once told me about my Jekyll and Hyde nature. She would mimic my careful language on campus and then quote me on the monthly drives back to Rhodes Cove to see my grandmother. She said that when we got to Asheville, I would say, with a nasal twang, “Hit ain’t much further.” Yeah, well, I am a committed backslider, now. Belatedly, I realize that if someone makes you ashamed of your language, they inadvertently make you ashamed of your heritage, your family, your origin. When that happens, the consequences are painful.

So, society dictates that we speak “correct English” in the workplace, but we are allowed to “revert to type” at home. My friends in Cherokee tell me the same thing — one kind of speech for the tourist, and another for Mom and Dad. I am told that African-American culture functions the same way. Yet, the experience still galls me since I still see people making judgments based on accent and language. Several years ago, a friend of mine auditioned for a PBS position which required narration for a series of television programs on Appalachian culture. Ironically, his speech was deemed inappropriate. The man who got the job was from New England.

Sometimes, when I am at the feed store or attending a Saturday morning yard sale, I hear it — that rapidly vanishing twang. Maybe two old friends meeting. “They, looky there! Why, I ain’t seen you since yore daddy’s funeral. Yere lookin’ good, old son.” Sometimes, I get a little choked up. I mean, I don’t even know the speakers ... they aren’t family, you know ... but then, in a way, maybe they are and we are a vanishing breed.

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com)

 

Back to Top
The Smoky Mountain News