Yoo-Hoo, deah Sno'birdie... (page 6)

AGuest

Mo'nin, chikkens... 'n piece t'all ya'll!!! Ah wuz at de job las nite wen ah wuz heah las... an had t'git on de rode 'fo hit got too late. So, sory ah din't git bak t'ya'll 'til now.

Deah NL (piece, chile!).. ahz thankin' ya'll dun sed: "Alright, there, how have you been, my girl?" Yes? LOLOLOLOLOL!

Deah Ataloa... piece t'ya'll az wel, chile... 'n ah don speek no jive, sory. Too vulga sumtime fo mah tase. Un'nessary, in mah opinyun.

Ennyhow, ahz 'bout don wif dis here thred. 'Jus wanit 'ta holla at deah Miz Silvie, iz all... 'n giv huh a laff 'o two. Iz all.

So, piece, deah chikkens... 'n ya'll henz watch yo'sefs. Hurd deyz be a randy roosta roamin' 'round up in heah!

A slav 'o de Lawd...

Shebbie

Oh, 'n deah WS (piece t'ya'll, chile)... dis heah t'ain't no plantation speek - hit's down home cuntry talk, iz all. Sumthin' my peeples larnt frum de white fok wut liv in da holla wit 'dem. Tru dat!

mrsjones5

Took me a good five minutes to read that.

That's because you're from a different generation, dear Josie (peace to you, dear girl!). My children would most probably have a heart attack if they saw me "speaking" like that because they're so... ummmm... "articulate" (and they never knew my grandparents, uncles, etc.).

But Miss Sylvia and I get it because it's our roots. It's how the people WE come from spoke. And we didn't look down on them, not one bit, for doing so. True, perhaps they were uneducated and inarticulate. Well, they didn't have all of the opportunities we now have, being poor and living "down south." But they were a GOOD people, a KIND people, a loving and HOSPITABLE people... and, like your dear MIL... weren't to be messed with. Most of them didn't have much opportunity to learn "proper" English because (1) they people they learned from... both black and white... didn't know it, (2) the people they were around most... both black and white... didn't speak it, and (3) they were too busy working to watch much television or listen to much radio (if they even owned one or both). And if they did, they never allowed themselves to even dream that they could BE like those they heard on TV/radio, let alone talk like them.

Even if they did... they would have been considered "high siddity," "snooty," "think[ing] they're white"... and perhaps even like me here... "condescending"... to their peers who didn't also speak "properly."

We learned to look beyond the vernacular, though... and just love the person. Toothless, overall-clad, and smelling of hay, horses, pigs, chickens, and goats, though they might have been.

Again, I bid you peace!

A slave of Christ,

SA

mrsjones5

But Miss Sylvia and I get it because it's our roots. It's how the people WE come from spoke. And we didn't look down on them, not one bit, for doing so. True, perhaps they were uneducated and inarticulate.

Dear Shelly, it's my roots too. I'm only first generation Californian on my mother's side. My mother's people come from Louisana, 'round Shreveport. Grandpa Dude and Grandma Rosie Orange spoke like that all the time, us kids we weren't allowed to speak that way - least not at home and in their presence. But it never crossed my mind to think that my grandparents were unintelligent just because of the way they spoke. They may have been uneducated but both were highly intelligent in their own way.

Reason why it's hard for me to read is I'm not used to it. All of my grandparents are dead and gone.

AGuest

My mother's people come from Louisana, 'round Shreveport. Grandpa Dude and Grandma Rosie Orange spoke like that all the time

Then you understand, dear Josie (again, peace to you, Missy!) how it is that Miss Sylvie and I are not making fun, but just walking down memory lane?

, us kids we weren't allowed to speak that way - least not at home and in their presence.

Yes, neither were we. It would have been considered disrespectful because we didn't speak that way naturally and so wouldn't have gotten it right. It would have appeared affectatious and as if we were ridiculing and making fun.

But it never crossed my mind to think that my grandparents were unintelligent just because of the way they spoke. They may have been uneducated but both were highly intelligent in their own way.

That's my [and I think dear Sylvia's] point, dear Josie... and why we don't have a problem doing it. It is not necessarily the position of everyone, though (however, since the thread was addressed to Miss Sylvia, who I know gets a melancholy tinge from it and so I offered it to HER I am not sure how anyone else could take exception, although one poster tried - but we henz set him straight - LOLOL!).

Reason why it's hard for me to read is I'm not used to it. All of my grandparents are dead and gone.

Yes, that's what I meant, same as with my children. They would most probably say, "What the HECK are you speaking, Mommy... and WHY??"

But forgive me if I misunderstood what YOU meant. I went back and reread your comments and I think I misunderstood the emoticons. Happens. But I meant nothing offensive to you, dear Josie. Now... or ever.

PEACE, truly!

YOUR servant and a slave of (de Lawd),

Shelly

snowbird

Thank you for starting this thread, Shelby.

No, it's not making fun of our people to talk that way.

If you've never been clasped to a warm, comforting bosom and told, "Lawd luv you chile, how you dun growed!", then it is hard to understand why we reminisce like this.

The teachers at our little mission school insisted on proper English at all times, so we almost forgot our ancestors' vernacular. Almost.

Thanks, again and again.

Your sister in Christ.

Syl

AGuest

Syliva... and peace to you, guhl! LOLOLOLOLOL!

YOUR servant, sister, and fellow slave of Christ,

Shel

beksbks

A lot of this makes me think of my grandmother.

snowbird

We're all interconnected, Bek.

I'll never forget that Alex Haley wrote that a young Black boy in the hills of Tennessee used to speak Gaelic when he was angered.

I also distinctly remember how some of the oldsters in my area sometimes spoke Elizabethan English, e.g., holp for help, strotch for stretch, and stob for stab.

Syl

snowbird

bttt, just because ...

Yoo-Hoo, deah Sno'birdie...

Share this