Dueling impressions

[Wilson Gray]

I was once chatting with a Kentucky-born, white linguist about
dialects. In the course of the conversation, he asked me about the
implosive consonants of BE. I was caught off guard. I asked, "Implosive
consonants of Black English? What implosive consonants?" He replied,
"You know. As in 'boy' and so forth." When I heard his example, I was
totally flabbergasted. The type of pronunciation that he considered to
be a defining characteristic of BE is one that I've always considered
to be a defining characteristic of the speech of "country"
White-English speakers! I didn't know what to say, not wishing to
contradict someone famous in the field, so I just changed the subject.
This type of pronunciation can be heard in an old song entitled
"All-American Boy" in which the singer, a white man with a "country"
accent, uses exactly this implosive b. I haven't looked, but there's
probably a sample of the song at towerrecords.com, if anyone cares.

-Wilson Gray