Vernacular

Wompyjawled |wämpijôld| adjective
1.To be off-kilter or askew, to be messed up and not in order: when you sleep like that, it’s not hard to see how your sheets get so wompyjawled.


I have said words that I have never seen written down. I say things in a way that would make Henry Higgins spin in his grave. I have spoken to strangers and had them look at me like a tentacle had suddenly sprouted out of my forehead. It doesn’t bother me too much, though, because that’s just how I grew up speaking.

My first realization that I even had an accent was in seventh grade, when I made friends with a girl who moved to Arkansas from Chicago. In English class, we were reading Huckleberry Finn. Oh, how she struggled. She had to read all of Jim’s words out loud, and even then she couldn’t always understand. She would say things just as they were written. “P’simmon. P simmon. Pee simmon. What could that be?”(1) Me? I had no trouble. All those words were just written the way that I said them. It was the same with The Grapes of Wrath—I had no language barrier with those Arkies and Okies.

However, language barriers with other people were more pronounced. I visited New York City once, and at a deli counter, neither the server nor I had any idea what the other was saying. Once I realized that I had a potential situation on my hands, I tried my hardest to eradicate the accent. I’m not ashamed of how I used to (and sometimes still do) speak; I was more ashamed of how people treated me once they heard me say something. Inevitably, no matter how educated my vocabulary was, my diction was a signal to others that I was slow and dimwitted. I tried to cultivate a nondescript American accent, with no harsh sounds or drawn-out syllables. It was hard, and I still slip up sometimes, especially if I’m tired or upset. The main reason I even try is that I hate to be judged based of something that has no real bearing on my intelligence.

Sometimes, though, I put words into my writing or my speech that confuse the heck out of people. I’ll say that I’m all stove up today (2), or that my britches are too loose. Sometimes I waller on my sister’s bed, ruck up the sheets, and haw on her pillow (3) . I forget that other people didn’t grow up with me, and that maybe they don’t hitch their socks up or mash the buttons on their remotes.

However, sometimes a little drawl is good for getting things done. Maybe it’s the teensiest bit dishonest to do so, but from time to time I’ll play up my accent to get someone to help me with things, or to get what I want. Southern girls can be a mite helpless, especially when it comes to getting heavy things off of high shelves. A slow and cultivated Southern accent can be quite helpful for getting people to answer questions and to help me out with something. What I’ve discovered, though, is that it’s best to use my accent and hometown vernacular judiciously, and not to waste its impact. To add just a word or two in an entire paper is enough to convey a sense of “otherness” in my writing, but not enough to distance the reader from the content. It’s a fine line to tread, and it doesn’t take much to knock it off-kilter.


(1) A persimmon.
(2) My back is tight.
(3) Roll all over it, mess up the sheets and breathe on her pillow to make it hot right before she goes to sleep.