English Language Scene

“Ok kids, this is Tucker Bartholomew. He just moved here from Virginia, and he’ll be joining us next week. Turn around now.”

            I stood in the back of the classroom with my dad and little sister. I stood there rather awkwardly for a seven year old, not really knowing if I should wave, or if I should say something. The teacher, Ms. Gandy, told me to come up to the front. I walked up to the front while my dad and sister waited in the back. I realized that if I didn’t say anything now, it would be considered impolite.

            “Hey ya’ll,” I said. This resulted in fits of giggles that only six and seven year olds can do and get away with. I was a little confused, wondering if my attire was inappropriate seeing as this was a uniformed school. It wasn’t like I was starting school today though so I didn’t get too embarrassed.  

            “Tucker and his family just moved into their apartment up on the west side. Who else here lives on the west side?” Three of the twelve students raised their hands. Zach Whitford, whom I had already met the day before, was one of them. He seemed like a nice kid. He talked pretty fast, however.

            “Ah think Ah met a few already.” More giggles.

            “Now class, what are you laughing at?” asked the teacher. An unusually petite girl named Gabriella Rovalino, answered before anyone one else could.

            “He talks funny.” This brought a repeat of the hearty laughs. This took me aback. I had never thought about the way I talked. Everybody talked like I talked, at least in Virginia. In the next few weeks I discovered that I did in fact speak differently than these New Yorkers. I realized that there is such a thing as accents.

I had always known my grandparents had southern accents. When my grandparents visited us, even in Virginia, sometimes people could not understand them. I became a translator. In the north, no one could understand them. After that, I started noticing more differences. People aren’t friendly; they don’t look at you in the subway, and they especially don’t want you to talk to them for whatever reason.

            I realized at that young age that language could affect opinions. Southerners talk more slowly, like molasses rolling off the tongue in words. People in New York always talked like they had something better to do at that moment. This, of course, is not necessarily true all the time. It’s a stereotype that I established. Stereotypes and their underlying assumptions divide the north and the south. James Baldwin once wrote, “Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker.” This is true in many different settings. People hear the way southerners speak, or they hear the way northerners speak, and they form opinions based on speech whether or not they are true. My future first grade classmates and possibly even my teacher labeled me as “slow” or naïve from my first “hey y’all.”

            I never really knew how to respond. I was too shy to really defend myself, so I ended up not talking as much as I usually did. This is when I first began to realize that the way you speak matters. My ideas of speech have matured over the years to the point where I understand better why it matters. I now understand why my grandparents often feel uncomfortable visiting in city areas. No one likes to be laughed at.

            I’ve never felt largely uncomfortable in a situation where I spoke differently until I went to my Uncle Nub’s funeral in 7^th grade. I had been living in Philly for several years. His name was not actually Nub. It was Curtis. Everyone called him Nub because, as a teenager, he laid his hand on the chopping block and dared his older brother to chop off his finger while the brother was chopping wood. His brother accepted the dare, resulting in the missing end of Uncle Curtis's middle finger. Incidentally, that brother is the one who gave him the nickname, Nub. 

Uncle Curtis was a man of stories and colorful language, so naturally he had many friends. As we were waiting in line for Barbeque before the service, my granddaddy was in line in front of us.  I had not seen him in years so I didn’t really know him or his second wife Helen. The topic of northerners came up when I said something very Philadelphian, and Helen said, “Don’t you ever become a Yankee. Don’t ever become one of them. You remember where you were born.”

            Although the next comment was a discreet comment from my older sister saying, “But also remember where you're being raised Tucker. And that’s the north!”

            This sent me into a whirlpool questions and concerns on how I would define myself. Am I from the south, or am I from the north? Do I adapt my speech to the people around me or do I simply decide not to care what others think? If I were asked where I am now from based on how I speak, I would say the north. I speak like I go to a high school in the north, which I do. I’m glad, however, that I have already gone through this sense of questioning where I’m from. I’m a bit wiser because of the questions that I have wrestled with and the answers I have developed. Realizing at a young age that language does creates opinions forced me to consider who I was and who I wanted to be.