Whither the Southern Accent?
By Marc • Nov 24th, 2005 • Category: the Ranter, the Weirdo“COLUMBIA, S.C. – ‘Y’all’ isn’t welcome in Erica Tobolski’s class in voice and diction at the University of South Carolina. And forget about ‘fixin’,’ as in getting ready to do something, or ‘pin’ when talking about the writing instrument.
Tobolski’s class is all about getting rid of accents, mostly Southern ones in the heart of the former Confederacy, and replacing them with Standard American Dialect, the uninflected tone of TV news anchors that oozes authority and refinement.”
They can take my southern accent when they pry it from cold dead lips. Who are these people to say to that our southern dialect shouldn’t be the standard. At least with our dialect, you can tell the difference between the singular and plural of “you”.
To be honest I think this is just bigoted. If they said they were teaching Hispanics to loose the accent because it made them sound like a lower class, there would be outrage. But since it’s a bunch of white folks, it doesn’t matter.
“Across the fast-growing South, accents are under assault, and not just from the modern-day Henry Higginses of academia. There’s the flood of transplants from other regions, notions of Southern upward mobility that require dropping the drawl, and stereotypes that “y’alls” and “suhs” signal low status or lack of intelligence.”
I got another one for ya’ll! “Kiss my grits!” And while we’re at it, it’s “ya’ll”, not “y’all”. These people are too stupid to even be good bigots….
Also, if we’re of such a lower class here in the south, how come all these Yankee carpet baggers are moving down here then?
Marc is a Catholic technology geek living in Tennessee. He blogs at Wild Tangents and is the host of the Catholic Vocations Podcast.
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Gotta disagree with you there, Marc. There ain’t no way you can contract “you all” to “ya’ll”. I’ve never seen it spelled any way other than “y’all”.
By the way, Kathy couldn’t help but notice the split infinitive. Gotta watch your sentence construction. Let’s not give ‘em any more ammunition, ‘k?
I’ve only seen it spelled “y’all” by northerners. I don’t see why it can’t be “ya’ll”. Unless you think that “all” can’t be split up like that, which would make “don’t” wrong also….
Fortunately a split infinitive is not indicative of a southern accent, it’s indicative of a Memphis City Schools education…..