Lesson Three
Addition
to 7. Special Spellings: John George of Crawfordville, Georgia,
writes that the Yankee program has all but triumphed over programme—always the British and old
South spelling. While he admits that he has a very hard time using programme, he
encourages us to give it a try. After all, he says, we write catalogue rather than catalog
with no trouble and find catalogue very natural. So as 7. j) noun and verb programme (not
program); and 7. k) catalogue (not catalog). Mr George also writes, ‘At the risk of
sounding hopelessly archaic, I would even suggest the possibility of a return to publick
since we dont write kic or lic for kick or lick.’ This is indeed worth
thought. As
Sara Hill added to ‘Verbal
Independence . . . A Second Lesson,’ Jefferson Davis insisted on theatre and sabre in
his Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, but his publishers changed his spelling.
So by all means, we should use the old Southern and British spelling as 7. l) noun and
verb sabre (not saber). We have already adopted theatre as 7. f) (in the second lesson).
The pronunciation of theatre might also bear comment. The word is commonly pronounced with
accents on either first or second syllables. I would also suggest accents on both first
and last or on all three syllables (depending on whether the a is pronounced as a long or
short a. When said slowly (the drawl) as is our way, the word allows such
accents—contrary to Webster’s.
8.
c) More endangered words—or,
‘In Praise of Mama.’ While our mamas often provide us with a closer touch to the
less corrupted Southern past and its speech and are worthy of proper homage, the praise I
wish to give is for the word mama itself. Mama, mamma, or momma are kin to the British mum
and the Ma’m of courteous address. The Lowcountry South Carolina mauma,
used in the plantation era, was the word for a venerable black woman (like
Auntie) and was the norm.
The word was often shortened to maum to address the lady, as in Maum Hannah,
sounding, indeed, very much like Mum, but given as a title of respect attached
to the name. Mauma,
rather than the British Nanny, was likely the basis for the Southern upland
and Deeper South Mammy.
It
may surprise our Southern readers to learn that mama is not a word used
very much outside the South, that
non-Southerners find the word quaint, peculiar, or foreign. (I
especially like foreign — as in being from another country.) The Center for the Study
of the American South at University of North Carolina – Charlotte has found that
‘Southerners tend to slip through the cracks between state surveys, which are
unreliable for generalizing [sic] to the Region, and national
surveys like those conducted by Gallup and Harris usually survey too few
Southerners to allow detailed examination. Rarely do surveys routinely include
questions specifically about the South.’ So the Center, with UNC’s Institute for
Research in Social Science and the Atlanta Journal conducts a regional survey each fall
and spring called ‘The Southern Focus Poll.’ Surveys question 800 Southerners
and 400 non-Southerners for the sake of comparison. While it would be pertinent to enquire
as to what the Atlanta Journal deems ‘Southern,’ the poll is very pertinent
here. In this most recent questionnaire, respondents were asked if they as a child called
their mother mama or momma. (Notice the possible implication that when you grow up, you
wont—that the word is thus only for children.) Only 9% of non-Southerners did call
mama mama; while 28% of Southerners used the word—thus between a quarter and a third
of us, and three times as many Southerners as non-Southerners. This is a difference we
ought to recognise and encourage. Let’s widen the gap by using this good Southern
word, and teaching our children to do the same—by example, the best
way to teach, after all.
More
on 2. The Subversive S-Z. We have made much progress in writing decentralise
rather than
decentralise, rather than homogenise, etc. In the League, the old
Yankee Zed appears to be taking a real beating. Here, the award for
orthography must go to Southern
Events (the Alabama state League newsletter) and The Agrarian
Steward (Monroe, Louisiana). Congratulations and thanks to Nat Rudulph
and David Rockett. Another tireless soldier
in the Southern Language Movement is John George, who contributes
a pertinent comment here, that while H. W. Fowler, in his A Dictionary
of Modern English Usage tried to take a purist approach to ise and
ize by attempting to distinguish between whether the word was Greek-Latin
or other in origin, Mr George likes the approach
of Shakespear’s Kent in Lear: ‘Thou whoreson Zed! Thou unnecessary
letter!’ So be it with us in the League as well. Continue to
substitute s for z, in Greek-Latin words or not — and frustrate
Yankee conformity.
George
also sends some interesting comments on 9. Pronounciation. He recalls
that when a child in the 1950s in Macon,
Georgia, his older brother attending Northwestern University delighted
in correcting his speech when he came home from college: ‘correcting me for saying
weather instead of whether, lion instead of line, Ah-lanna instead of At-lan-ta, hammah
instead of hammer, and figguh instead of figure.’ Mr George continues: ‘Imagine
my surprise later when I discovered that Canadians and British alike pronounced figguh the
same as Southrons (granted, sometimes with the r more pronounced) and that only
damnyankees and Southrons who were taught to be ashamed of their pronunciation say
fig-your. We have never broached the question of pronunciation because I think it safe to
say the consensus of opinion of the LS members would be that Southrons should never be
ashamed of their Southern pronunciations. While Lowcountry and Piedmont pronunciation
might be considered as the ‘received standard’ pronunciation because of the
antebellum planter class, Appalachian and western forms should and will be equally
accepted. Maybe someday Dixie will have its own dictionary with proper Southern
pronunciation.’ Amen, Brother George! ’Tis a consummation devoutly
to be wished.’
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