Let Me Hear Ya Holler, Now!

[sisabet]

Okay, while I am thrilled that as part of their series of articles on class in America, The New York Times is focusing on a Pikeville, Kentucky attorney (very interesting story) I am also just... I am taken aback by the fact that the missed a very important point.

There is a miss-spelling in the freaking title of the article. They then continue to misspell the word "hollow."

Up From the Holler: Living in Two Worlds, at Home in Neither
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/national/class/DELLA-FINAL.html?incamp=article_popular

(registration required, but worth it).


See - she is from a hollow. She grew up in the hollow. If you live near Eastern Kentucky this is a geographical word you will use several times a day. And you will pronounce it "holler." The attorney says "I grew up in a holler, I surely did," and this is how NYTs reports it but that is only phoenetically what she said. She actually said "I grew up in a hollow, I surely did," and I can read that and I know *exactly* how she said it and what inflections she used and the fact that when she says "did" the central vowel sounds both hard and soft.


This is just a pet peeve of mine. No one, no educated person, in Appalachia (btw? Pronounced App-uh-LACH-uh - no long "a"s despite what your teachers told you. People living in a region get to determine how it is pronounced, donthcha know?) would ever write "holler" for "hollow" although they would never pronounce "hollow" as anything other than "holler" - and it feels very patronizing or sloppy for The New York Times (and man I wish I could curse) to not make the same effort. Later on in the article it says "On a rare visit recently to the hollows where she used to live, she was moved to tears when a neighbor came out, hugged her and told her how he used to pray and worry for her and how happy he was that she had done so well." So, yeah - Tamar Lewin knows it isn't spelled "holler" and this just bugs me crazily.

Cause, see - I read this paper every single day and I also live in a state where poverty is still a huge issue, where not everyone has running water and having an education is not so much a right as just luck. But I am educated and I work very hard and I pay attention so it feels like just another slight - just another attempt at *removal* at "lookit the ignorant hicks" and I guess the fact that this bothers me so much in an article all about Class is ironic. I have a chip on my shoulder about this, I know, but gah - there is a class barrier in this country where if you identify as blue collar or a fan of X or X then you are automatically labelled redneck trash and are therefore not worthy of respect.

And I could blame Jeff Foxworthy for this, and I would if it was actually his fault, but no. He just built a career on manipulating the ideal which marginalizes a lot of people. Yeah, I know that the Nascar Dads were the big sought after vote in the last election, but that does not mean that these people are not on the outs when it comes to economic status, education and healthcare. They are just susceptible to voting against their best interests because the people in power understand that they know, these ignorant hicks know, when they are being mocked to their faces. I don't know that this is a lesson my party has yet to learn.

Because this, this spelling issue is just a small, tiny thing. A thing that - if Lewin had written "I grew up in a hollow, I surely did," and then went on to make a point that she pronounced it "holler" - I'd be happy with the attempt at accuracy and sharing a bit of our common language with people who might not be exposed to it.

The article itself is actually really nice and has some good stuff about Berea in it, so that always makes me happy. I'm just peeved a teeny bitty bit. I'll get over it.

Comments

[movies-michelle.livejournal.com]

The Seattle PI a year or two ago was doing this whole series about one of their reporters traveling across America and stopping and getting a "feel" for the place. I don't normally read their features, but I happened to see one day that they had an article on Louisville, so I went ahead and read it.

And I just wanted to scream. It was all about this old woman living on the East End (which is the "bad" part of town), and yeah, I knew exactly the kind of house she was in and where the house was, and what the people looked like and everything. But it was all done in such a "isn't this QUIANT?" tone of voice that made me want to strangle the writer. I hate that. I hate that condescending attitude and the "let's go see the creatures in their native habitat" noblese obliege thing.

Yeah, Mr. Author, I get that you've never had collard greens in your life. I get that you think this little old black woman sitting in a rocker on her porch is just the cutest thing ever. But I'd like to point out that she's a person, not a cliche, and that she's probably been through more in her life than you can imagine. Oh, and also, she could probably kick your skinny, white, northwestern ass up one side and down the other of the street, if she had a mind to.

ARGH.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Yeah - it is just... Okay - I know that out of almost all of my friends, I am the least formally educated. I also know that the education that I have received has been somewhat spotty, although I did my best to take classes that challenged me and to continue learning no matter what/where I am. But I do feel like I am always playing catchup with a lot of stuff and that is tiring.

I still have an extremely healthy opinion of my own intellect, but there is some anxiety there as well. I also am not ashamed of where I come from and I do chafe at what I perceive as elitism in the political space I inhabit -- especially following this past election.

I mean, I get the frustration people feel over so many voters actively voting against their own interests and I think what many people are missing here: it was not about morals or values. A lot of people just were not reached at all with the message. Or if they were reached? They felt insulted. It had nothing to do with Jesus. The right wing just wants us to believe that. They want the voters to believe that as well -- hence all this Culture of Death drivel that has been spouted since election day.

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

My favorite (well, in a backhand way) story like this is the story of Dorothea Lange's picture of the Migrant Mother. Check out the different perceptions.

This is Lange:

"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it."

This is the story as told by the Migrant Mother's grandson, Robert Sprague:

"Then a shiny new car (it was only two years old) pulled into the entrance, stopped some twenty yards in front of Florence and a well-dressed woman got out with a large camera. She started taking Florence's picture. With each picture the woman would step closer. Florence thought to herself, "Pay her no mind. The woman thinks I'm quaint, and wants to take my picture."

According to Sprague, Lange promised the photos would never be published.

Btw, even if Lange didn't ask, the Migrant Mother had a name. It's Florence (Owens) Thompson.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

Hope there weren't any cricks down in that holler. Might have to give sommun a whuppin if there was.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Heh - round here the phoenetic spelling for "creek" is "crik" no "c" involved.

And yeah - it is one thing for us to do this jokingly. But this is is part of a New York Times series on class status in America. You'd think they'd be more concerned with such a distancing tool.

What I got from the article is that people who say "holler" for "hollow" are part of some exotic other and that just drives me nuts.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I think you're right to be concerned about it -- I was raised with a book of Uncle Remus stories and I think that I did come to associate the dialect itself with the Br'er Bear level of mental unsharpness.

Alas, there must be a sufficiently long-standing pedigree of "holler" before this story, since both of my big dictionaries list it as an acceptable variant spelling.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

I know the correct regional pronunciation thing also bothers me to like people saying "ORE-gone" for Oregon or "Will-a-met" for Willamette. Of course, it's also fun to see how Puyallup comes out.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

In this case - it isn't that the author doesn't know the correct way to pronounce/spell the word "hollow" - it is in the condesension that appears evident in Lewin's approach. It bugs me.

[fyrdrakken]

Reminds me of the quote from a source I can't recall, "Unless you're Mark Twain, don't try to indicate accents phonetically." Because that's just bad writing that far too many people fall into the temptation of using because they don't realize how much accents can be mentally indicated just by word rhythm and phrasing choices.

But, yeah. I've elsewhere run across the statement about an accent from south of the Mason-Dixon line making people from outside the South automatically and unconsciously mentally deduct 50 points from the speaker's apparent IQ -- a comment that stuck with me since I'm Texan. Making a point of the "holler" thing comes across as another of the above-commented "Aren't they quaint?" examples.