Fwd: 16.1469, Sum: American Dialects

[Wilson Gray]

On 5/9/05, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Fwd: 16.1469, Sum: American Dialects
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Laurence Horn forwarded (with much snippage):
> > 2) A related reason given was that there is a "hillbilly accent". This
> >     hillbilly accent has been around TV since the Beverly Hillbillies, and
> >     has been very successful in sitcoms.
>
> "The Real McCoys", with a somewhat similar premise (West Virginia
> family moves to California), predates "The Beverly Hillbillies" by quite a
> few years (1957 vs. 1962). (Of course, the "hillbilly accent" has been a
> staple of comedy in film for much longer; cf., e.g., "Murder, He Says"
> (1945).)
>
> Jim Parish
>

--
Don't none o' y'all 'member "Lum and Abner" at the "Jot 'Em Down
General Store"? Haow abaout "The Judy ("Bah dangih dawgihz, Ah shore
do love that 'ere gal," as Lewkih, Jewdih's boy fren, used to say)
Canova Show"? "The Eddie Arnold Show"? Not to mention the many kangs
of twang feartured on "Grand Ol' Opry." Hail far, y'all! Thar was even
a "Li'l Abner" radio show! And who doesn't recall "Chester" of
"Gunsmoke"? Not to mention the many hick sidekicks who were staples of
horse opera. The only radio show not to fall into line was the Tom Mix
Show, which featured both a Latino oaf and a black oaf, which
characters vwere played by white men, of course. The white guy playing
the black guy was so over the top in his version of negro dialect that
I didn't even realize that the character was supposed to be colored at
till I saw a cartoon of him. Of course, these all date from radio days
that much preceded commercial TV. But, nevertheless, cracker comedy
isn't something that simply sprang fully-formed from some TV writer's
brain.

-Wilson Gray