Re: IMHO

Colin Douthwaite wrote in message <909...@mnementh.southern.co.nz>...
>joris bellenger <svz...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>
>>This guy sure speaks funny: must come from the same place as Jonathon.  :)
>
>>(no offence intended Jonathon)
>
>As for Jonathon Oglesbee's dialect that is evidently home-spun
>American style folksy language quite unrelated to the language of
>the Old Testament.


Actual, what I speak half the time is (or was, a long time back),
commonly referred to as "drylander" or "drylanner".  Bee-leve it or
don't, I aktual do soun' this way, 'bout half the tyme er better.
It dee-pends on who I is talkin' at.

    It is an almost extint dialect, which I was fortunate enough
to have exposure to through my grandparents on my mother's side.
They lived in a small place called Non, Oklahoma.  It used to be
a town, when you could make a living off of 40 acres and a mule.
Needless to say, it's not a town by any definition, these days.
The few inhabitants around the area are (or were, I sadly report),
just the kind of artifacts you would imagine.  So, being raised
aroundt them, I learnt to tok properly, an' a good thang, too.
This at least makes me the only one on this here E-type newsgroup,
who kin speak ryte an' proper.

    Hollywood is always trying to imitate such linguistic acrobatics
as I have picked up natural like, but it usually ends up a pale,
 ridiculous, and sometimes even offensive interpretation.  It is an
old speech pattern, possibly described as somewhere between Scarlet
O'hara in Gone With The Wind, and Festus of television's Gunsmoke.
Gary Cooper in a few roles has managed a fair approximation, as
Gary Busy did in "Barbarosa" (of course, he comes from this part
of the country, which helped).  Robert Duval in the film True Grit
also does a fair job of capturing it. It tends to be slow, frequented
with politeness (it often considered rude, if you do not say goodbye
at three times), but fraught with the most outlandish metaphors, synonyms,
and cliches imaginable (most of which are not fit for tender eyes to
read, and many of which would ree-quire explanation).  It can still
be heard spoken by some elderly people in rural areas of southeastern
Oklahoma, in an extended (but now almost non-existent) area known as
"Little Dixie".

    It ere a pity that it ere almost gone 'way as ah ol' akscent,
as t'were much admired in ol' cowboy films, ect.. I was lucky, to
have been around an isolated area with lots of old people who had
lived with it, heard and spoke it all their lives.  Most ere ded now;
gone on to their ree-ward.  It were the language of the old sod-buster,
the outlaw, the noveau wealthy oilman (from here), the man in the
long black coat (preacher), and the occasional sawbones.  It's a good
sixty years past its final days, and bears only slight resemblance to
what is heard in these parts today, which I generally find crude and/or
dumb sounding.

    Lucky fer me, I reckon.  I don't constantly sound that way ...
(well, I like to think not, with my education and upbringing
from the other side of my family, though I suppose I never
completely lose all of the inflection when speaking im-properly)...
but as way of comparison, my speech is enough to make a Texan
green with envy, and an Alabamian jealous to appoplexy.  I suppose
the major benefit is that girls like to hear it; although the
converse is even more so.  My wife doesn't really speak it, but
girls who do have no lack of suitors. Pity is, that there aren't
many of 'em.  Most are old, and past marryin' up age.  But you
could listen to my grandma talk, all day long.

    It does have it drawbacks, though I find them endlessly
entertaining (most of the time).  For instance:

     I am sure everyone has heard or read in some book about
people saying things like "He (or it or that or whatever) is
of no account".  Meaning of course, that whoever or whatever is
no good, or of no use.  Now, the interrogative of that, and sometimes
the statement itself is often  "Is that (he she it whatever) any
count?"  Meaning, is that any good?  Yet even here in present day
Oklahoma, if I go into a store and ask "Well, is this any count?"
no one has any idea what I am asking.  "Count" is as dead as
a two-by-four, for use as an interrogative or for making a statement,
unless I happen to be in the rare situation of talking to someone
who knows what it means.


    True, I sometimes pull things like that on a'purpose.
Nevertheless... ah well.  Enough fer now.  I gots to chase
these here chillin'.


              JRO
ogl...@mail.fullnet.net-removetoreply

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