[HPFGU-OTChatter] Fw: Texas Facts

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

At 10:10 AM -0500 5/13/02, Amanda wrote:
>
>My grandmother spent her teen years in a graceful house on a tree-lined
>residential boulevard on the outskirts of Houston, called Westheimer.

The Spouse and I once drove All The Way Down Westheimer just to see 
where it ended . . . it still looks like that if you drive far 
enough.  You just have to drive a _lot_ farther.

>  > And usually pronounced "fixinna".
>
>Not where I live, easterner. Are you one of those "You-ston" people, who
>leave the "H" off of Houston, too?

No, that would be the Mother-In-Law - who is hardly an Easterner, 
unless Deer Park counts.  ;)

>Actually, my honors paper in college was on the Southern dialect in east
>Texas, and we failed to find it.

Really?  As a native speaker of it (born in unpleasant exile in the 
North to two native Mississippians, moved back there before learning 
to talk), I'm sure I've heard it around Port Arthur.  Perhaps those 
are displaced northern Louisianians, but they seemed native enough.

>This explains why my grandmother, native of east Texas, *did* have a
>graceful Southern accent (we would beg her to say sugar and pepper and such,
>to hear /shu-gah/ and /pep-pah/), using wonderful words like "gallery"
>/gal-ree/ for porch and such, and my mother and uncle did not. Which little
>oddness is what sent me off on this honors project in the first place.

Hmm.  _I_ don't think I've ever heard "gal'ry" used for a porch - 
back home, it's a walkway on the roof of a house, like a widow's walk.

>So I don't think I'd consider the Southern dialect to be particularly native
>to Texas anymore, but I don't know if any Authorities have weighed in on it
>or if the standard linguistics maps have ever been updated.

They hadn't when I was taking linguistics courses in college here. 
Perhaps there are enough of us transplants around to keep the image 
alive . . .

-- 
  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles at earthlink.net
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