5) Abbreviations.
Mr Mrs Ms Dr Sr Jr Rev Esq—We do not use a period with these abbreviations.
Interestingly, the great Southern writer William Faulkner always deleted
the period in Mr
and Mrs. He also wrote the one-syllable contractions (wont, dont, cant, etc)
without the apostrophe, as prescribed in our rule number 4 (See July-August issue). We
Southerners certainly thus have powerful precedent in adopting these forms used by the
20th century writer most celebrated worldwide. So, indeed, thank you Mr (no period)
Faulkner.
6) Quotation Marks. British
orthography reverses single and double quotation marks. Place double
quotation
marks inside the single. For
example: All repeated with feeling, 'It is time again to sing our national
anthem "Dixie".'
7) Special Spellings. For these, there are no easy
ways to remember by grouping. They must be learned one by one. Some important and
frequently-used spellings are: a) grey (not gray); b) the noun cheque (not
check); c) the noun or verb catalogue (not catalog); d) the noun, verb, and
adjective centre (not center); e) the adjective meagre (not meager); f) the
noun theatre; g) the verbs enquire and ensure (not inquire and
insure); h) the noun enquiry (not inquiry); i) the noun disc (not disk).
(Jefferson Davis insisted on theatre and sabre in his The Rise and Fall
of the Confederate Government, although the publishers changed his
spelling. —Ed.)
8) Endangered words.
a) Dinner-Supper;Dinnertime-Suppertime. The meals that punctuate a Southern day are
breakfast, dinner, and supper. (See Southern Patriot, Jan.-Feb. 1996, pp. 4, 6, for
a discussion.) The evening meal dinner, whether big or small, light or heavy, is
still foreign to the traditional Southern ear. Lunch may be an acceptable
introduction for a fast eat-on-the-run New South (No South?) meal (no meal?) at midday. We
would hope that our readers might avoid situations in which lunches 'happen'. And even if
they do occur, call them dinners anyway, even if they dont rightly deserve the name. Supper
under no circumstances should be called anything but supper. Dinner in
the evening is as foreign as cream-of-wheat at breakfast or
codfish and unsweetened tea at any meal.
b) To Raise (not Rear) Children. Southerners raise
their children, never rear them. Neither do they parent them, because those who
raise them are properly understood to be parents. The alternative, of course, to government
the child, or to social worker the child—terms, interestingly
enough, we have not yet heard to describe the truth of the matter.
A celebrated Pulitzer
prize winning, South-hating author of my acquaintance once chastised
me in an emotional outburst for my
saying a certain black lady was raised near my home. 'Like turnips!'
he blazed with righteousness, saying I had used a racially demeaning figure
of speech like the 'n-word'
or boy. Even after I got over my initial shock, I did not attempt to explain
what most Southerners know—that we in the South are (if we are fortunate
enough) all raised,
both black and white, and not reared. And it is, indeed, no doubt,
like turnips with us—yes, and also like cotton, okra, and beans—and with no shame in that!
Any agrarian people well knows the image is a good one, for crops need the careful long
process of planting, daily tendance, and then the grace of God over all—to
yield up a successful crop. Raising requires great loving care and more than just biological
growth. So out of our noble Southern agrarian heritage, let us keep our expression to
raise, and foreswear to rear. And that will make certain we
also keep the good old countryman's phrase, 'Boy, aint you had no raising?'
And we'll know precisely what we
mean. Because inherent in raising is good, courteous behaviour—good
manners which must be taught in social situations by the family.
We Southerners do
have our own language to a much greater degree than we realise. Because
we hear the ABC-CBS-NBC
language all the time (the Southerner's second language), we take it for
granted and become so used to it that we finally dont hear how different
we speak. We should start
being aware of our own unique turns of speech and expressions that are
not part of the homogenised, denatured norm. Cultivate these differences
and take pride in them.
