Southern Talk: A Disappearing Language (review)

Now we owe gratitude to Iones and Brunner for reminding us that it's possible to show both the truth and the beauty ofAppalachia—since the beauty is part of the truth. —Amy Caudill Hogg Ray Cunningham. Southern Talk: A Disappearing Language. Asheville, North Carolina: Bright Mountain Books, 1993. 224 pages. $12.50. This compendium of regional expressions is the latest, certainly one of the richest and most substantial, popular books on Southern speech written by amateurs, a genre perhaps most widely represented by How to Speak Southern, the little paperback that has been on the newsstands since Jimmy Carter made the successful run for president in 1976. Beyond the merits of any one book, that such titles have a long (at least since the 1950s) and lively (the reviewer has more than thirty on his shelf) history constitutes a cultural phenomenon of some interest. Why are they so numerous? Who is their audience? What views of language do they portray? Who are their authors and what are their qualifications ? Many of the type are designed entirely for the tourist-shop trade. Their contorted spellings, cutesy illustrations, and unabashed reliance on stereotypes make them the print counterpart to Hee Haw and apparently represent more than anything else attempts of Southerners to snooker Yankees and other furriners out of a few dollars. Others, including the present volume, are wistful efforts to document older-fashioned language, either for its intrinsic value—its vividness and charm—or as part of a disappearing culture in which people used language in more interesting and more varied ways, the intrusions of radio and television usually being blamed for its present-day homogenization. All such books are strongly motivated by the desire to entertain. Thus, even though the author of Southern Talk laments in his introduction that "old timey southern talk is so much a part of our past that it's saddening to me to see it die out .... I only wish it were possible for you to hear for yourself how the old southern folks 'talked it,'" he also wishes his readers, "Have a good time!" However much regret he may have about the demise of traditional speech and culture, this is overshadowed by his pride in the language and its speakers. The author is just too fond of the material not to share its delights with others. Cunningham compiles nearly fifteen hundred words and expressions and provides each with a brief definition and a sentence exemplifying it. One great value of the work is its comprehensiveness. There are fifty-four entries for letter "R" and 130 for "S"; these include phrases, pronunciations, and vocabulary. 66 The author cities as his qualifications his nativity to the South (north Alabama) and his lifelong residence and travel in the region: "I have spent a lifetime listening to the old timey talk in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina , South Carolina, and Florida during the periods I have lived in each of those states"; indeed his examples have an authentic ring to them and will make any Southerner nod frequently in recognition. Here we find fair to middlin' ("pretty good") epizootics ("a disease that is hard to describe or put a specific name to)" and down in the mouth ("sad, depressed") among many others that are no longer or never were in standard desk dictionaries. The volume is also noteworthy for its modesty, in the sense that it lets people speak for themselves, although they remain anonymous to us. Cunningham largely resists the all-too-common tendency to make such material appear more folksy or even outlandish by contorting die spelling and by sprinkling apostrophes in many words. Naturally he modifies spelling when he wishes to indicate a particular pronunciation (mere—"mirror"; pint—"point"; brar—"brier") but only occasionally falls into the practice of respelling words to indicate the folksiness of the speakers (werd—"word"; b'leeve—"believe.") The latter represent general pronunciations to be found throughout the country and their respellings here are what is known as "eye dialect," giving the visual impression that a person is speaking dialect who is using the everyday pronunciation . For the most part Cunningham resists the temptation well. A third useful and...