Wednesday, March 22, 2006

A Southernism Gone Wrong

First, I confess, I feel like a damn Yankee today. (FYI, according to the southern people I work with, anyone from "up north" is considered a Yankee. Anyone who moves to the south and doesn't appear to have any intentions of leaving is a Damn Yankee. I will move away from here one day, I just don't know yet when that day will be, and today it feels like an eternity away. But this is all beside the point.)

Second, I'd like to confess (if you haven't figured it out already), that my humor is sometimes of the same caliber as a 4th grader. If you haven't hung out with 4th graders lately, then I'll just say I still laugh at the word "fart". Wait... I haven't hung out with 4th graders recently. I wonder if they laugh at that at earlier and earlier ages nowadays?

Third, here's the meat of my story, the whole point in calling this post "A Southernism Gone Wrong". I heard once that the reason people from the Midwest (such as myself and Mr. Honey) don't have "accents" is because they pronounce words exactly like their phonetic spelling in the dictionary. I have no idea how true that is, but I like to claim it makes me have no accent. At the same time, I realize that after a year of living in Minnesooo-oooota and adopting their long "o" into my speech, followed by 3 years now in the heart of southern country, my language can best be described as something analogous to "Mutt-speak". Have you ever heard a Midwestern-Minnesotan-Southerner talk? No? Try it sometime. ;)

Anyway, this morning I heard a word that I've always pronounced the same. I say it the way my mom and dad taught me, the same way Mr. Honey says it, and I'll say it that way until someone gives me a really good reason why I should say it any differently. The word in question? Pecan. Yup, the nut. And since there are lots of pecan trees around here where we live, I think it's only fair that I can talk about pecans and how people around here say the word.

I call it a pu-kahn'. People around here call it a Pee Can. Pardon me for saying so, but a Pee Can just doesn't sound real appetizing to me. Would you want to eat a Pee Can? Or discuss what Pee Can do? You want some whipped cream on that Pee Can pie? Now, I don't mind if people call it a Pee-kahn, or a pu-Can. But please, in the interest of preserving the dignity of a major agricultural export of this region, please don't call it a Pee Can. At least, not to us damn Yankees.

I promise, I'm gonna do that tag thing from Lucy real soon here. One of these days. I swear.

Posted by Honey :: 12:08 PM :: 3 Comments:

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