There Just ‘Ain’t No’ Wrong Or Right Way To Talk

One of my neighbors says she is amazed I can write as well as I do given how sloppy I sometimes talk, saying, “Ain’t got no,” “them dogs” or using verbs like “fixing” and “holler.”
You can blame this, perhaps, on a blending of cultures.
I’m sure I still have some “dude-speak” left over from my years of growing up – and now frequently visiting – my hometown of Virginia Beach, Va.
Yet I have also picked up phrases like “Is he being hateful?” and “I reckon that’s a mess” from nearly 20 years of living along the Tennessee-Virginia border and lovingly learning the language of the natives.
It comes naturally.
My wife, for one, was born in Bristol, and her beautiful voice gives me plenty of fodder. I imitate her constantly.
But, as a kid, I was also fascinated on family trips in the 1970s, hearing the accents of my cousins and aunts in Tennessee, living in Greeneville and Morristown and speaking with delightful southern twangs. Today, much of my job means listening to the language of the people I interview and capturing their phrases in print.
In a similar way, that’s also what Amy Clark does.
An associate professor of English at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, Clark studies the role of language in society. She dissects dialects.
And, on a recent spring day, I sat in one of her classes, discussing the differences in what you would hear at a Wise County coal camp and a fishing village along the Chesapeake Bay.
Clark, the director of the Appalachian Writing Project, recently won a $4,000 grant from the National Writing Project to lead a team of teachers studying language patterns at public schools in Bristol, Wise and Big Stone Gap.
What’s formal? What’s informal? Words like “kinfolk” and “haint” may be unrecognizable in some parts of the country, Clark said, but they are part of standard talk in others.
“Even standard English is a variation,” Clark said.
Clark’s students – coming from Coeburn to Ashburn, all across Virginia – all told me they had picked up new ideas about language from being in Clark’s class.
Adam Hobbs, 18, a 2008 graduate of John S. Battle High School in Bristol, Va., said, “I have more appreciation for my language and the heritage and culture it has in it.”
It’s OK to say “ain’t” and “y’all,” Hobbs said.
Rene Newman, 22, a communications major from Roanoke, Va., said learning language patterns will help her in the field of marketing “to know my target audience more.”
As for Shannon McClendon, 19, she thinks there’s a difference in the simple speed of speech between the mountains of Southwest Virginia and where she grew up in Northern Virginia (Nova).
“Nova people tend to talk faster,” McClendon said. “Some people tend to talk slower here, I’ve noticed ... But, there’s no right or wrong.”