Lovin' the way we talk

I'm listening to a murder mystery novel, and the tale's based in Nashville, Tenn. The author is quite familiar with that area as he describes the streets and neighborhoods with exact detail.

He cannot, however, be a native Southerner as he's included every hackneyed, stereotypical phrase ever attributed to a backwoods southern hick in his book.

The narrator makes it worse by using the fakest Southern accent I've ever heard, and I've got a comparison. I grew up in New York state, and I quickly became aware of the vast differences in the way I talked versus the teens I was meeting in school.

I pronounced words like "car" and "bar" with a hard "a" sound -- like "kar." People in Louisiana, however, used a much softer accent on that "a," and it was "cahr" and "bahr." Soon I fell in love with the genteel way those words rolled off their tongues.

Northerners like to group everyone from the South into a broad category, where we all say "reckon" and "ya heah" and have a lower IQ just because we talk differently. But we're not stupid because we have a drawl -- we just pronounce words differently and take our time about saying them.

In the South, one shoe does not fit all. There are different accents across the region, starting with the distinct vowel sounds coming from those reared in Virginia. They pronounce words like "mouse" more like "moose" and "house" like "hoose."

One of my favorite Southern accents hails from Georgia. The mother of one of my best friends in high school hailed from that beautiful state, and she pronounced Albert's name as "Ahl-buh." I'd ask Mrs. Bondurant questions all the time, just to hear her transform ordinary words into musical notes.

I'm from Louisiana, and I tend to put a French slant on the words. When we first moved to Houston, I pronounced "Bissonnet" as "Biss-a-nay," just as they would in Louisiana.

However, I found out that in Houston, it's "Biss-ah-net," the Spanish pronunciation the preferred method. Same as with "bayou." In Louisiana, it's "by-you," and in Texas it's "buy-oh."

The mysterious city at the end of the Mississippi River is often mispronounced. People not familiar with Louisiana words call the city "New Or-Leans," but southerners know the real name is dragged out -- "New Ah-Lins."

People often talk about people from the Bronx having a distinct accent, but the people from Chalmette and Metairie, Louisiana have accents extremely similar to their Northern cousins. The two accents are almost interchangeable -- things don't "warp," they "wop," and it's not "oil," it's "earl."

Cajuns also have a distinct accent that's charming and quite distinct. My dad could lay on a Cajun accent as thick as cane syrup in the winter. The "chers" and "ah biens" rolled off his tongue whenever he wanted to charm someone.

Here in the Lone Star state, there's a variety of accents, and I thoroughly enjoy Texas country, especially the familiar sayings from people who were born and reared here.

People from other areas have sayings particular to their region, but you'd have to go a long way to beat the Southern explanation of stupidity: "he's so dumb, he could throw himself on the ground and miss."

The next time I'm ready for a story based in the South, I'm going to pick up the printed version so I can imagine the voices in my head. That way, I'll have an old-fashioned, good-ole-gal voice in my head.

And honey, that'll be finer 'n frog's hair.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.