Eyes on the White House Lawn

For the first time in about a hundred years we have a President who speaks with a Southern accent (give or take a few phonemes), and the nation seems to be enjoying the fact. Everybody is making jokes with “y’all” and “shucks” in the punch lines, talking knowingly about “good ole boys,” and casually using expressions like “madder than a long-tailed pig in a revolving door.” This Era of Good Feeling is bound to end, however. Southerners and Northerners think they speak the same language, but in actual fact they do not; and I would bet my last chitterling that it won’t be long before the hostilities break out. Here are some examples of the confusion T foresee.

1. Misunderstandings caused by the pronunciation of the long i sound. Northerners pronounce the long i sharply in words like rice and ice. Southerners, on the other hand, drag the thing out as if they were really enjoying it. Instead of rice, a Southerner says rise; instead of ice, he says eyes. This could cause some problems for President Carter. Returning to the White House on a cold winter day, he phones up the head of the maintenance staff: “Good afternoon, this is President Carter. I just wanted to report that I noticed a lot of eyes on the White House lawns and sidewalks.”

SV

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S. L. Varnado

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For the first time in about a hundred years we have a President who speaks with a Southern accent (give or take a few phonemes), and the nation seems to be enjoying the fact. Everybody is making jokes with “y’all” and “shucks” in the punch lines, talking knowingly about “good ole boys,” and casually using expressions like “madder than a long-tailed pig in a revolving door.” This Era of Good Feeling is bound to end, however. Southerners and Northerners think they speak the same language, but in actual fact they do not; and I would bet my last chitterling that it won’t be long before the hostilities break out. Here are some examples of the confusion T foresee.

1. Misunderstandings caused by the pronunciation of the long i sound. Northerners pronounce the long i sharply in words like rice and ice. Southerners, on the other hand, drag the thing out as if they were really enjoying it. Instead of rice, a Southerner says rise; instead of ice, he says eyes. This could cause some problems for President Carter. Returning to the White House on a cold winter day, he phones up the head of the maintenance staff: “Good afternoon, this is President Carter. I just wanted to report that I noticed a lot of eyes on the White House lawns and sidewalks.”