Yes, newscasters’ dialects sound as if they all grew up on the same street. Yet, tweaks do remain. My Texas niece, now a grandmother in Oregon, told me the other day that her granddaughters use “you all” and she is working on “I’m fixin’ to” being a part of their vocabulary. My mother had a soft Miss-sippi drawl and would “por tha wha-ter.” I thought I sounded usual in our group until a son’s friend asked, “Now what country is your mother from?”
In the fall of 2000, a girl from Alabama joined my 8th grade class. She had long dark hair, thick eyelashes, and a soft voice that spread like warm honey. When she responded in class, boys followed her every word never realizing exactly what she was saying. These two comments are copied as exact quotes from my journal of the time. To expand plant knowledge beyond cacti, she volunteered information on kudzu.”It’s just aww-ful. Why, it grows ev-rywhere an’ it has snakes! If ya git in it, ya have lotta trouble gettin” out.” A book several days later told of being whipped with a peach limb. Someone questioned why that mattered. “Gracious! Peach trees have ends that snap and have some rough places and they hurt! That’s one whuppin’ you shure don’t want ta have.” Boston was definitely not her city of origin.
I’m not sure what accent Lydia of Thyatira had. She must have had a voice and personality that drew others to her. When Paul found her on a sabbath search to arrive at a place of worship, she had without any props attracted a group to meet and listen to her teach. She had that sense of hospitality that noticed the needs of others and reached out to offer a welcome to strangers. All that was missing for her to be a southern lady was to offer fried chicken for lunch after church.
Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Proverbs 16:24
Let Me Tell Ya 