Here’s one that might be limited to Iota and environs: “Look the/your _____”. If I left the bathroom and Mom said “Look, the light,” it meant that I left the light on and should turn it off. As far as I can remember, it had to do with something forgotten or missed or left out. If you were writing down a recipe and forgot to list rice, I might tap the paper you’re writing on and say “Look, the rice.” If I was getting out of a car and Mom said “Look, your sunglasses,” it meant I had forgotten them in the car. Also, the Cajun pronunciation of “mayonnaise” rhymes perfectly with the name “Inez.” When I first moved to Austin I went to a drive through and asked for “a burger with tomatoes, onions, and mayonnaise.” There was a pause. The poor confused girl at Wendy’s asked, “Well … minus what?” I now just say “mayo,” because pronouncing all 3 syllables of the word makes me feel like I’m putting on airs. You can take the boy out of Acadia Parish, but you can’t take the Acadia Parish out of the boy. The “or” sound is more like an “ar” sound where I grew up too. This is a constant source of amusement to my Texan friends and family. In my mouth, “fork” sounds like “fark,” My friend, George, cringes whenever I say his name because it rhymes with “barge.” I do my best to make it rhyme with “forge”. And these crazy Texans (as well as the crazy rest of the country, I guess) pronounce the names Erin and Aaron the same. To me, “Aaron” gets that real flat, Cajun short ‘a’ sound, while “Erin” sounds like “AIR in”. And I’ve given up trying to teach them the difference between “parish” and “perish.” >: | Louisiana has quite a few different accents, though. After you pass Marksville to the north, the accents start getting more and more like East Texas / South Arkansas. Funny: In re the phrase “come here,” the 1st time I heard somebody from Claiborne Parish say it all I heard was “cuh MAY er”. I could not understand what she was saying to me. The closest I could come to making sense of it was that she was inexplicably calling me a tomato.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:19:13 +0000
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