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June 6, 2009

Linguistic idiosyncrasies make for delightful listening

By GORDIE LITTLE, Small Talk

I love dialects and accents and would never denigrate anyone whose speech did not match my own.

When I was in college, I attended a presentation in Potsdam when a man took the stage and invited some members of the audience to join him. Those participants, chosen at random, were asked to read a short paragraph aloud. Instantly, the man announced where each person was born or grew up. He did so with great accuracy.

I recall that he told one woman she was most likely born within 20 miles of the auditorium. She was astounded, for he was correct.

As small as the world has become with so many people moving often from place to place for work or pleasure, I wonder if the man would have the same success these days. My first guess is that he would. Our speech patterns are apparently set quite early in our lives, and certain keys words give us away.

Living near the northern border, it's rather easy to detect what we call a Canadian accent in those who speak English as their primary language. And, if we think about it, we can often distinguish those who were brought up in this region when they pronounce the words "How now brown cow."

I lived the first seven or eight years of my life less than 20 miles from New York City and still carry traces of that region's linguistic idiosyncrasies in words such as "water." Since childhood, though, I think I have maintained an accent that I would describe as "flat." Perhaps that has something to do with so many years of public speaking and a daily effort to sound "professional," whatever that means. As far as I know, I never assimilated any regional pronunciations or speech patterns from the many places where I lived.

QUEBEC LILT
I enjoy listening to my friends who speak with a French-Canadian accent and have written in this column of poet Dr. William Henry Drummond, who penned "The Wreck of the Julie Plante." The last line is a classic and one that we have adapted to our own Lake Champlain: "You can't get drown on Lac St. Pierre (Champlain) so long you stay on shore."

I am forever indebted to Bill Burleigh, who not only sent me the original sheet music to "The Hills of Dannemora," but also knew of my interest in Drummond and gave me the late doctor's 1897 book entitled "The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems."

Included is Bill's handwritten note saying, "I don't know anything about this except it looks like my dad's typewriter. Inside the flyleaf is the penciled autograph, "Andrew L. Burleigh." Folded, there is a sheet of paper containing a poem called "HABITANT" and obviously typed on an ancient typewriter by the elder Burleigh.

It reads to me like smoothly flowing water: "De win' she's blow on noder place eef she is blow at all. An' in de lazee stillness you can hear de locus' call." It is totally different from the title poem "The Habitant" in the book and I haven't seen it written anywhere else.

A delicious mystery and a wonderful treasure. My thanks again to William Burleigh and all of you for reading this column every Sunday.

Next week, I'll talk more about my love of dialects, especially that immortalized by James Whitcomb Riley, the great Hoosier and children's poet, who died in 1916. Like many others of my generation, I relished his songs and poetry as a fourth-grader and memorized some of the wonderful verses. I relish them still, but I fear that, today, he is largely forgotten.

Have a great day and please, drive carefully.

Gordie Little was for many years a well-known radio personality in the North Country and now hosts the "Our Little Corner" television program for Home Town Cable. Anyone with comments for him may send them to the newspaper or e-mail him at gordandk@aol.com.

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Cornell Cooperative Extension

Richard Gast: Cornell Ag Extension

Bob Grady

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Peter Hagar: Cornell Ag Connection

Health Advice

Ray Johnson: Climate Science

Gordie Little: Small Talk

Terry Mattingly: On Religion

Steve Ouellette: You Had To Ask

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Senior Thoughts