Southernisms
My first experience with Tennessee English that I can remember came when I was driving through the state about 10 years ago with my sisters. We had stopped at a Subway for lunch. What was normally a smooth process of saying whether or not you wanted black olives, lettuce, pickles, etc on your sub turned into a series of "What did you say"'s. It definitely wasn't English.
While I no longer find the Southern Appalachian dialect incomprehensible, it does still have its oddities that I fail to understand. One of them, until today, had been the name for a "pen." Instead of asking if you need a pen, Chattanoogans will ask you if you need an "ink pen." I've always had to fight the urge to respond, "No, I'd rather have a water pen," or something else along the same sarcastic line.
Saturday I was rounding on the ICU patient census with several other doctors, and one of the nurses asked Dr Jeff Horn if he needed an "ink pen." At the end of rounds, I asked Jeff if it had ever struck him as slightly redundant ... rather like asking for wet water or cold ice. It hadn't ever struck him as odd before, but he agreed that it was a linguistic oddity. He advised discussing the matter further with our local expert on Southernism's, Dr Bob Aderhold, a Georgia redneck otherwise known as the "puff ader." Monday morning, I ran into Ader in the SICU, and presented my troubling linguistic problem with the "ink pen" to him.
Without hesitating for even a second, he confided that he had also been troubled by the redundancy of the term. In fact, he had almost lost his faith in the efficiency of Southern English as a result of these thoughts. However, one day the necessity and importance of saying "ink pen" rather then just plain old "pen" dawned on him, leaving him with a lasting peace of mind. The simplicity and logic of the argument left me dumbfounded.
He explained, if you don't say "ink pen," how would your audience know that you don't mean a "straight pen, a bobby pen, hat pen, or even a dog pen or bull pen?" He has a very valid point.
While I no longer find the Southern Appalachian dialect incomprehensible, it does still have its oddities that I fail to understand. One of them, until today, had been the name for a "pen." Instead of asking if you need a pen, Chattanoogans will ask you if you need an "ink pen." I've always had to fight the urge to respond, "No, I'd rather have a water pen," or something else along the same sarcastic line.
Saturday I was rounding on the ICU patient census with several other doctors, and one of the nurses asked Dr Jeff Horn if he needed an "ink pen." At the end of rounds, I asked Jeff if it had ever struck him as slightly redundant ... rather like asking for wet water or cold ice. It hadn't ever struck him as odd before, but he agreed that it was a linguistic oddity. He advised discussing the matter further with our local expert on Southernism's, Dr Bob Aderhold, a Georgia redneck otherwise known as the "puff ader." Monday morning, I ran into Ader in the SICU, and presented my troubling linguistic problem with the "ink pen" to him.
Without hesitating for even a second, he confided that he had also been troubled by the redundancy of the term. In fact, he had almost lost his faith in the efficiency of Southern English as a result of these thoughts. However, one day the necessity and importance of saying "ink pen" rather then just plain old "pen" dawned on him, leaving him with a lasting peace of mind. The simplicity and logic of the argument left me dumbfounded.
He explained, if you don't say "ink pen," how would your audience know that you don't mean a "straight pen, a bobby pen, hat pen, or even a dog pen or bull pen?" He has a very valid point.
posted by The Mad Hatter at 5:08 PM
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