You Don't Talk Good

Each and every part of my life is touched by southern tradition, from the way I speak to the way I present myself.

I have so much pride in where I'm from, but I'm also not immune to the stereotypes associated with the region, its people and particularly our southern speak.

People make many assumptions about the south including, but certainly not limited to:

• A thick mountain accent = low intelligence
• Wearing cut-off shirts that promote guns and gun accessories = racist NASCAR fan
• Flying a rebel flag = ignorant redneck
• A sugary sweet low country accent = rich snob

That pretty much sums up my sentiments.

These stereotypes can do one of two things.

1. Make someone even prouder of their culture or almost spiteful. Example: "You think I'm redneck? You just wait, I will show you redneck!"
2. Make someone ashamed of their culture. Example: Me when I was 18 years old.

Until I left for college, I had never given a second thought to the fact that I was southern. It was just a part of my core, not some accessory I considered putting on each morning.

But the first week of undergrad changed everything for me.

I was talking to a friend who happened to not be from the south. He was looking at me funny so I stopped talking.

He said, "You sound so uncivilized when you speak. Are you stupid?"

After that, I was always self-conscious of my accent. Don't get me wrong, I love my accent, but there are many situations when I will purposely tone it down to ensure an incident like that never happens again.

I think my accent, and the southern accent in general, is beautiful. I am proud of what each word represents, because each word, no matter how redneck or nonsensical*, represents a part of my heritage.

However, I am an intelligent person and I never want to give someone an unjust reason to believe I am anything else. Like wearing blue jeans to a job interview - it's all about how you present yourself.

With all that said, I was very entertained the other day when I mentioned to a friend that I do, in fact, tone down my accent, especially at school.  Let's be honest, art school kids and rednecks aren't really on the same page linguistically.

Me: "Yea, I almost always tone down my accent."

Her: "Like right now? 

Me: "Yea, why?"

Her: "Wow."

And here I thought I was flying under the radar... bless my heart!

Examples of nonsensical southern words I use almost daily:

• Airish (Example: It's a bit airish outside today.)
• Directly (Example: I'm running to the store, be back directly.)
• Mess (in terms of amounts) (Example: I just bought me a mess of sweet taters.)
• Fixin' (verb) (Example: I'm fixin' to run to town. Yuns need anything?)
• Settin' (Example: I was settin' in that chair.)