The Southern Curse

Several years ago when a friend returned from a business trip to Chicago, he told me the average cab driver sounded more intelligent than the average North Carolinian. I found this to be very funny and, sadly, very true.

Speaking for myself, someone who has spent most of her life in Greensboro, North Carolina, but who has also lived in Virginia, Alabama, and Maryland, it pleases me to say I do not have much of a Southern accent. At least, that is what people here tell me. I often get asked, "where are you from?" or "are you from up north?" However, times I have visited New York City, men go ga-ga over my 'southern accent' and every time I say something in a crowded area, people gather around and ask, "where are you from," just as they do here ('here' being North Carolina). For the record, my southern friend doesn't have a southern accent, either. (Well, unless it's like mine, and only magically appears when traveling).

I have a Bachelor's Degree in English, but before college, I had the same accent I do now. I do speak grammatically correct, so maybe that helps. I guess what I am saying here is, I feel people can control the way they speak. Southerners are regarded as having inferior intelligence, and it's all because they speak like they just walked off the plantation! And I'm sure our politicians look like total idiots when they stand up to represent us. I will never forget poor Virgil Goode from Virginia, former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. I used to crack up laughing when his campaign commercials would air - he sounded like Barney Fife on helium. This is an intelligent, educated, man, and he sounds like a complete ninny.

I have come to realize that there are categories of southern accents. For instance, if an educated woman has a slight southern drawl, she is a Southern Belle and can still come across as someone with a lick of sense. This can also be said for a man, the Southern Gentleman ,but in my opinion, a woman can get away with it more. This is also assuming there are no grammatical mistakes, because we all know the Southerner is famous for such genius as "ain't got no," "it don't mean nothin', and...oh, I can't bear to say anymore. I will admit I do say, "y'all," but I think people say that everywhere, don't they? Anyway, the poor grammar speakers with the heavy southern accents, those are your hicks, or your rednecks, however you'd like to classify them. I would say they would be the most difficult people to reform, because they have grown up with parents and grandparents who speak in the same fashion, and it's just embedded into their little redneck brains and it's impossible to get out.

Is it hopeless? Perhaps not. Like healthcare, it's all about preventive maintenance.

I propose that the public school system get involved ( just the southern states, of course). The process should begin as early as kindergarten. The first lesson will be to never use the words 'ain't' or 'irregardless,' and that the only 'axe' is the one used to chop wood. There should be intense pronunciation exercises. ("Students, there is no 'aw' in dog.") If this type of training continues through high school, we just might be able to eliminate the southern accent by the year 2050!

And Southerners won't be laughing stocks any longer.

Good idea, don't you think?