OPINION? Everybody has one - Keeping a civil tongue can prevent a black eye

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

When picking on a feller about his speech patterns, are you giving that particular person a compliment or are you being mean spirited and hateful?

I ask that as a real question because I was set to wondering a couple days ago when a feller from Alabama showed up at the coffee emporium and started talking.

His speech was slow and sorta flowed like warm syrup, and he let parts of words just roll along out of his mouth. I enjoyed every word the man spoke. But one of the older gentlemen - and I use that term loosely - started poking fun at the difference in our dialect and the Alabaman’s. I smiled, thinking at first that this was gonna be a compliment and then the mean mouthing sorta slipped out.

Who can say that the colloquial speech we use around here is the absolute correct way to express ourselves? Well, yes, of course, I think we are right as I can understand every word spoken in our abbreviatedways. I say my words just like the next feller around these parts, but the Queen’s English is a fer distance from my tongue.

For example, did I just say fer instead of far? Yep, and that is what I meant and you understood it too, didn’ you?

Being born and raised in an area that has a crippledtongue sort of dialect is a downright shame, but those folks really can’t help it that they come from those places. I cannot understand the Yankee jargon no matter how hard I try, and I figure they really work hard at saying their words that way. You just gotta give them credit for the effort. Try it yourself see how you gotta twist your tongue and even your mouth to say almost any word.

Well, the feller from Alabama was a smart man friendly and tough. He turned around to face the table, began rolling up his shirt sleeves as he started talking about playing football and being in the Navy His tattoos started showing as he made another roll upHe continued to smile and the honey was dripping from his lips as he recounted the times he killed and skinned possums, coons and fox with nothing but a knife and his bare hands.

He was leaning on the table, palms flat in the dead center and staring eye-to-eye with the heckler.

I had already moved toward the back door because I was pretty sure I couldn’t explain any of this to my close relative if I showed up with a black eye and a bloody nose. That Alabama feller reached over and flicked a speck of something off of his nemesis nose, turned and paid out, looked back, waved and was gone.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, keeping a civil tongue in your head is an absolute must! It is an unwritten law, a sort of code of the west, and could even save a feller’s hide! I think there are folks that are hired from birth to heckle others and they make it their life’s work. But us common folk are another breed, soft and kind hearted. And we have a steady dislike for pain!

That little episode cleared out the emporium and I sorta turned tail and ran for home. I am not stupid!

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 09/22/2010