 Nancy Einhart is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected]. |
Simply hearing me utter the word “umbrella” sends my Midwestern roommates into a fit of hysterical laughter.
Why? Because my Southern upbringing compels me to place the stress on the “um” instead of the “brell.”
Yeah, it doesn’t leave me rolling on the floor either.
Though my Mississippi relatives would argue that I’ve turned into a “goddamn Yankee” during my tenure at Northwestern, my three years in Chicago have taught me at least one thing — I apparently sound like a complete hick to anyone who has grown up above the Mason-Dixon.
When meeting new people, I can hardly force out the name of my hometown without being interrupted by comments like “Do people from Florida have Southern accents?” or “Is Pensacola really the South?”
Trust me — I’m really from the South.
I know this because I have an uncle named Duddy and a cousin named Jug who married into the family wearing bib overalls and no shoes. And though my mom managed to come away from Mississippi with a relatively normal name (Nan), when uttered by Duddy and various other relatives, the name becomes two syllables: “Nay-un.”
Each time my brother and I arrive at a family event looking a bit more polished than usual, at least one person greets us with an enthusiastic, “Y’all clean up real nice!” A rather backwards compliment, perhaps, but at least it’s better than when they tell me I look like I’ve been “eatin’ good.”
But you see, Southernism is kind of like a dorky little brother or sister. You can pick on your younger sibling or your hometown as much as you like. But as soon as someone else cracks a remark, that’s crossing the line.
For example, it infuriates me when my roommate tells me stories about her linguistics class, where students were asked to listen to a recording and draw conclusions based on the speaker’s voice.
After an articulate man told a simple story about a camping trip he’d taken, the students decided the speaker was probably not very bright and hadn’t made it past high school. In reality the guy owns a publishing company, boasts a Ph.D. and just happens to be from North Carolina.
But my defensiveness really kicks in when folks from the frigid North encounter my mom, the product of a sawmill-ownin’ family in southern Mississippi.
Now, my mom’s no dummy. She even has a master’s degree from one of them big fancy universities in the South. But when she visits Chicago, people look at her as if she’s speaking another language. My friends like to listen to her voice on the answering machine just for kicks. Once a waitress at Blind Faith Cafe made my mom repeat her tomato juice order four times because she couldn’t understand her accent.
It’s not like we broke out a hardcore Southernism and told the waitress she looked like she’d been “rode hard and put away wet” or anything. My mom was just trying to get some tomato juice. At a vegetarian restaurant.
But from now on when Nay-un visits Evanston, she plans to communicate using a little chalkboard tied around her neck like Anthony Hopkins’ character in “Legends of the Fall.”
So maybe we’re a little hard to understand. And we might not pronounce “umbrella” exactly the way you do. But if you think we talk funny, you should hear Uncle Duddy.
