by Gary Cain

Created on: March 12, 2009   Last Updated: March 24, 2009

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

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