I was more or less raised on the east coast. But I also spent a lot of summers in Oklahoma. Both my parents had rural, agrarian upbringings, one in Kentucky, land of beautiful horses and fast women, and the other in Oklahoma. One of my siblings has described Oklahoma as southern and western, but definitely not southwestern. Under their cowboy hats, Okies definitely operate with a southern sensibility. For many years I was married to a highly educated woman who grew up in the boondocks of Arkansas. She was buried so deep in the pine forests and mountains of rural Arkansas that the first black person she encountered was when she went away to college. She and her mishpocha had a very southern, rural way of speaking. When we would go back to visit her parents, the closer to their home we were, the more country her speech became. The same phenomenon happened the further afield we ranged. Once we were on vacation in New England, and I had to frequently translate for her. The Yankees up there were baffled by her accent, and she, not infrequently, by theirs.
So why I am I bringing this up? Continue reading “Okeisms – Southernisms “
