"I'm going to get the mail!" I chirped to my co-workers as I headed out of the office.
The words had barely escaped my lips when my hand, almost of its own volition, clamped over my mouth. I froze in horror. It wasn't what I had said that caused the reaction. It was how I said it.
Mell. I'm going to get the mell.
After thirteen years in New York, and countless hours of acting classes, I thought I had squelched the last traces of Eastern Kentucky from my speech. Sure, there was the occasional "y'all" now and then. But even that had evolved into the more Yankee-approved "you all" over time.
I'm not even sure how I ended up with the slight twang I brought to New York. My parents, both Northern born-and-raised, speak with a neutral accent, even after living in the South for decades. It was just something I picked up, I suppose. I didn't even think I HAD an accent until my New York cousin, Marco, cringed upon hearing me pronounce "umbrella" (with the decidedly Southern emphasis on the "um"). "Honey," he chided, "you have GOT to get rid of that accent. People are going think you're stupid."
I was hurt, of course, and indignant that Southerners could be so unfairly judged by these rude Yankees. But his comment, I'm ashamed to admit, cut deeply. I became more aware of how I spoke. Still in college at the time, I worked to adopt a Neutral American Accent in my scene study classes. Before long, it became natural.
The Neutral American Accent wasn't to last, however. A dozen years later, with two years in the Bronx and a year and a half in Brooklyn under my belt, my "r's" were sometimes slipping. The word "quarter" somehow sounded more like "qua-dah".
When I moved back to Kentucky, I thought I was at a point in my life where I no longer gave a crap about what other people thought about my speech patterns. But the slip-up, the Eastern Kentucky mell-mail incident, gave me pause. I never imagined myself as one of those people with a Franken-accent. Like my great-uncle Alan, who spent the first half of his life in Brooklyn and the second half in South Carolina. The words that rolled out of his mouth almost seemed to be fighting their own Civil War. Pure Brooklyn-ese was punctuated by a confusing Carolina drawl. I remember being more fascinated by the way he spoke than by what he was saying.
And yet, here I was, dropping r's like a Yank and twanging like a hillbilly. At the same time. I stood for a moment in the hallway, contemplating my new identity as a perpetual stranger in a strange land. Then, with a smile, I continued down the hawl-way to get mell.
The words had barely escaped my lips when my hand, almost of its own volition, clamped over my mouth. I froze in horror. It wasn't what I had said that caused the reaction. It was how I said it.
Mell. I'm going to get the mell.
After thirteen years in New York, and countless hours of acting classes, I thought I had squelched the last traces of Eastern Kentucky from my speech. Sure, there was the occasional "y'all" now and then. But even that had evolved into the more Yankee-approved "you all" over time.
I'm not even sure how I ended up with the slight twang I brought to New York. My parents, both Northern born-and-raised, speak with a neutral accent, even after living in the South for decades. It was just something I picked up, I suppose. I didn't even think I HAD an accent until my New York cousin, Marco, cringed upon hearing me pronounce "umbrella" (with the decidedly Southern emphasis on the "um"). "Honey," he chided, "you have GOT to get rid of that accent. People are going think you're stupid."
I was hurt, of course, and indignant that Southerners could be so unfairly judged by these rude Yankees. But his comment, I'm ashamed to admit, cut deeply. I became more aware of how I spoke. Still in college at the time, I worked to adopt a Neutral American Accent in my scene study classes. Before long, it became natural.
The Neutral American Accent wasn't to last, however. A dozen years later, with two years in the Bronx and a year and a half in Brooklyn under my belt, my "r's" were sometimes slipping. The word "quarter" somehow sounded more like "qua-dah".
When I moved back to Kentucky, I thought I was at a point in my life where I no longer gave a crap about what other people thought about my speech patterns. But the slip-up, the Eastern Kentucky mell-mail incident, gave me pause. I never imagined myself as one of those people with a Franken-accent. Like my great-uncle Alan, who spent the first half of his life in Brooklyn and the second half in South Carolina. The words that rolled out of his mouth almost seemed to be fighting their own Civil War. Pure Brooklyn-ese was punctuated by a confusing Carolina drawl. I remember being more fascinated by the way he spoke than by what he was saying.
And yet, here I was, dropping r's like a Yank and twanging like a hillbilly. At the same time. I stood for a moment in the hallway, contemplating my new identity as a perpetual stranger in a strange land. Then, with a smile, I continued down the hawl-way to get mell.
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