Texas murders the mother-tongue.......

 

One feature about Texas that is well known but seldom commented upon is the respect given by its denizens to other people. Although congenitally insubordinate, respect is almost always shown to women, elders and superiors.

 

About the only thing Texans have no respect for whatsoever is the English Language.

 

This is the state of Hee Haw, Memaw, Papaw, Billie Bob and Bubba. As far as pronunciation is concerned, Texas has rewritten the dictionary and much of its definitions. Even my more sophisticated and educated Texas friends have no problem with calling Linda Me Maw instead of grandma.

 

The etymology is in doubt and may stem from babyish efforts to arrive at grandma just as the baby word for brother is bubba. One might gain the impression that the south in general and Texas in particular are linguistically handicapped.

 

I for one refuse to respond to papaw which sounds more like something to eat than a family designation. Pepaw is also used and borders on the vulgar.

 

But in a state filled sectioned off with millions of miles of bob whar, what can one expect. I actually encountered a lad recently who was seemingly lost on the prairie. He and his amply endowed spouse came upon me by surprise, stopped their pickup truck and asked if I had noticed some rusting coils of bob whar around anywhere.

 

When the penny finally dropped, I managed to confess no knowledge of barbed wire coils anywhere around.

 

That one could see for miles in any direction appeared to have no relevance to the original question. More surprisingly, we became friends, at least to the extent that we take morning coffee together at the local grocery store and petrol station where farmers and ranchers muster to talk about cows and the weather.

 

Footnote from Hay GB.

 Local pronunciation variants have a habit of getting into the vocabulary, sometimes changing their meanings. ‘Sass’ was a mispronunciation of ‘sauce’. I see ‘roil’ used quite frequently of late. It really means mixing liquids and solid, like cement, but it is now wrongly used to mean ‘rile; then there’s the dropping of ‘r’, as in ‘cuss’ and ‘bust’. Some supposed Americanisms are actually found in Shakespeare – ‘varmint’, for one.

 

Thought you might like to know that!