Speakin’ Southern

The other day I was making polite conversation with some friends when someone I didn’t know very well interrupted me and said, “Where did you say you were from again? You have such a strong southern accent!” I was quite taken aback. Some people have told me that I have a slight one, but never more than that. I tried to think back over the last words issued from my mouth and couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary. Puzzled, I asked him why he thought so. He promptly replied, “Well, you just said you were fixing to go to the store.” So that qualified me as having the strongest southern accent he’d ever heard? And we were in Virginia! But I just smiled and conceded, “Well, I guess you have me there.”

On my way home I thought some more about the short exchange. It wasn’t that I was offended by the thought of having a southern accent; I actually think it’s a nice one to have. I’d just never thought of myself as having one. Sure, I use certain idioms common in Southern Georgia, but I am completely lacking in either the twang or lilt required in a southern tone. I feel as if I speak a partial dialect – I use the slight turns of phrase and yet I pronounce them in Standard English. For me, it has always been the pronunciation that makes the accent, not the words themselves.

Last semester in Professor Smith’s creative writing course we talked a lot about how colloquialisms are a more effective tool for providing a character’s dialect than changes in the orthography. Having read my share of books that looked as if they didn’t contain a word of English, I agreed with him wholeheartedly. Colloquialisms and idioms were definitely more successful than butchered spelling when trying to convey a certain tone of voice on the page. If you use enough colloquialisms the readers can and will imagine the accent for themselves. In light of my recent conversation, apparently that theory did not just apply to writing, but speaking as well. Use enough southern sayings and people will probably project a southern accent onto you whether you have one or not.

So what do you think, do colloquialisms an accent make?


Snooping out the Snopes

If you aren’t familiar with the works of William Faulkner, you might be wondering about where the name of the blog originated. Prepare yourselves for enlightenment. The Snopes are a fictional Southern family from Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. They are at the roots of Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy that includes The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town.  Faulkner presents these characters that dwell in Frenchmen’s Bend as crafty beyond belief. He begins in The Hamlet by illustrating in a rather ironic way the arrival of Flem Snopes into town. This memorable scapegrace will do anything to make a buck – be it working hard or letting others do the hard work for him. For example, after marrying the grocer’s daughter he then manages to extract a preposterous price for her mansion amidst a fog of rumors about buried gold coins. Each relative, whether closely or minutely related, has his or her own adventure (or misadventure as the case may be) adding up to a boisterous if somewhat chaotic compilation of tales.
Why use this unlikely band of characters as a muse for our blog? Perhaps it is because we wish to emulate their cleverness in order to obtain success. Perhaps it is because of our own motley ensemble of bloggers. Or maybe the title serves as a warning, a reminder not to be taken in by all of our words (though I must admit that they are wise ones) and to disagree with us every now and then.

What are your thoughts?