Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Write On Edge: Colloquialisms and Dialect

This week's RemembeRED Prompts gives us 400 words to explore colloquialisms, phrases, or dialects in a narrative non-fiction setting. So here goes nothing.


I was born and raised in Southern California.

My family, however, either live in or migrated from the All-American Midwest or Bakersfield (which might technically still qualify for Southern California, but it’s populated with descendants of dust bowl transplants so no, it doesn’t really count in my book). As a result, phrases like “I was aimin’ to” and “wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute” manage to slip out in my conversations from time to time, along with a very thick Mid-Western drawl.

And then there’s the warsh.

I grew up in a household that warshed the dishes and warshed our clothes and warshed our hands before supper. The topic didn’t come up much in school, so it wasn’t something that I necessarily was teased for. (I was awkward enough to be honest so there was plenty of other material for mean kids to work with.) Then one high school drama club car wash fundraiser came along.

We were a gaggle of giggling girls with the job of making posters. Mom, bless her support-the-kids-beyond-all-reason heart, helped. Neither one of us could keep the “r” from rearing its fugly head. The gaggle giggled profusely over warsh and started in the teasing. And then it happened.
I actually wrote “Car Warsh Today” on the blasted sign.

Did I ever mention that I hate high school or its denizens, and to this day, give my alma mater the finger as I drive by? Crass and beneath me, I know, but it really does help me feel better. That, and the knowledge that mean girls have a special level of hell reserved just for them, right next to litterers and cold-callers.

Wash is a word whose pronunciation is still quite elusive for me. I have to concentrate before I say it and so I try to avoid it altogether. Good thing I have a husband who doesn’t mind doing the warshing up, because he teases me incessantly when I slip up. Honestly though, I think he likes the drawl.

*I apologize if my point of view about Bakersfield has offended anyone. If one understood my opinion about Southern California, however, one would see that I consider that a compliment.

16 comments:

  1. Oh, man. My dad waRshes everything. And we teased him for it, too. I'm always trying to figure out where in the midwest that extra 'r' comes and goes, since the rest of my family didn't pick it up!

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    1. Even I irritate me when I say warsh, but for the life of me I can't seem to fix it. :)

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  2. I'm a Hoosier and I used to say warsh clothes, but I live in deep south now and "doin' laundry" is a more common phrase. However, I still warsh the car. Also there's things like calling a "creek," a "crick" and pronoucing "roof" with a short "o" sound, so it's more like a dog-bark, "ruf." Then there's calling all soda "pop."

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    1. Thanks for stopping by. I say "crick" too when I've been jawin' with the kinfolk. I never could get the hang of "pop" though. They look at me funny when I call it a coke.

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  3. I love how many today have confessed to the one shameful word that always catches them out and I notice too how fitting in at senior school is always the issue! Great piece. :)

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    1. Like most writers, I find the process of writing to be cheaper than a session with a shrink. I have a ton of unresolved baggage from my grade school years (honestly, most of the problems I made for myself) but I'm surprised I survived those years. Thanks for stopping by and the smiley face!

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  4. Okay, so like this was my favorite line: (I was awkward enough to be honest so there was plenty of other material for mean kids to work with.) Super duper LOVED it!!

    With that said though, I totally busted a gut on the whole WARSH tangent. I SO have heard people say that. And Madamdreamweaver, I too say "Doin' laundry," "crick" and "pop."

    And then there's my use of "like" which sometimes has me seem like a Valley Girl. Funny I haven't come across anyone writing about that way of speaking yet . . .

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    1. No really, I'm not kidding. I did not fit in with any of those dunderheads, even when rare moments happened that exposed we had something in common.

      My family and many of the people I considered friends while I was young were all conservative adults. And my brother was an English major. Subsequently, I never really used "like" or "uh" as much in my regular conversational speech, so it never became a habit. The thing I've noticed about "like" is that no one ever seems to realize that they're using it.

      Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I'm glad I could make you laugh. That means I did my job. :)

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  5. I actually have a mother-in-law who tends to throw in the word "warsh" on occasion. But she is from East Texas, not California. Weird how some stuff spreads across the world, huh?

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    1. Hehehe Though the mountains divide and the oceans are wide, it's a small world after all.

      Thanks for dropping me the line! :)

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  6. I enjoyed your post. Visiting from WOE. I can't help but laugh and not sure if you intended it to be funny or not. Hope you don't mind that I got a big grin out of it.

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    1. I'm positively thrilled that I inspired a smile and a bit of laughter. I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. :)

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  7. Many a member of my family feels compelled to visit the "warshroom" when they need to do their thing.

    I get it.

    And bless your mom. She sounds like a caring soul.

    I really liked the line about cold-callers and litterers. Me too, sister.

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    1. I didn't always appreciate her when I was younger. The curse of teenagerhood I think. But there wasn't a cause she wouldn't champion for me and to this day she is my biggest fan.

      Amen and thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! :)

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  8. I SWEAR TO YOU, my family warshes too! I am from Kansas originally, and thankfully recognized warsh as unacceptable in most other parts of the planet before ever embarrassing myself, but it was always a concern! My family also liked baked bataytas. They peel bataytas, they eat loaded mashed bataytas- the whole nine. :-)

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    1. Oh yeah, bataytas! I know the sound well. I had an uncle who pronounced Toyota more like coyote (TEYE-Yo-TEA)

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing!

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