The educated
Southerner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word. He
says 'honah,' and 'dinnah,' and 'Gove'nuh,' and 'befo' the waw,' and so
on. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print, but they have it to
the ear. When did the r disappear from Southern speech, and how did it
come to disappear? The custom of dropping it was not borrowed from the
North, nor inherited from England. Many Southerners - most Southerners -
put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound. For instance,
they say Mr. K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing k'yahds or of riding
in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasant custom - long ago fallen into
decay in the North - of frequently employing the respectful 'Sir.'
Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they say 'Yes, Suh', 'No,
Suh.'
But there are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as,' and the
addition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentleman
say, 'Like the flag-officer did.' His cook or his butler would have
said, 'Like the flag-officer done.' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have
you been at?' And here is the aggravated form - heard a ragged street
Arab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n'
at.' The very elect carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; and
many of them say, 'I didn't go to do it,' meaning 'I didn't mean to do
it.' The Northern word 'guess' - imported from England, where it used to
be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee
original - is but little used among Southerners. They say 'reckon.' They
haven't any 'doesn't' in their language; they say 'don't' instead. The
unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone.' It is nearly as bad as the
Northern 'hadn't ought.' This reminds me that a remark of a very
peculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a few
days ago: 'He hadn't ought to have went.' How is that? Isn't that a
good deal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-
breed's architecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other
Southern. To-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?'
This form is so common - so nearly universal, in fact - that if she had
used 'whither' instead of 'where,' I think it would have sounded like an
affectation.
We picked up one excellent word - a word worth traveling to New Orleans
to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word - 'lagniappe.' They
pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish - so they said. We discovered it at
the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day;
heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third;
adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a
restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when
they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's
dozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom
originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant
buys something in a shop - or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I
know - he finishes the operation by saying -
'Give me something for lagniappe.'
The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root,
gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the
governor - I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.
When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New
Orleans - and you say, 'What, again? - no, I've had enough;' the other
party says, 'But just this one time more - this is for lagniappe.' When
the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too
high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would
have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg
pardon - no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for
lagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill
of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and
gets you another cup without extra charge.
Chapter 45 Southern Sports
IN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once a
month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject for
talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficient
reasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen to-day, it
can easily happen that four of them - and possibly five - were not in the
field at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that the
war will at no time during the evening become the topic of conversation;
and the chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will
remain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, you
have added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of the
war that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and now would
soon weary of the war topic if you brought it up.
The case is very different in the South. There, every man you meet was
in the war; and every lady you meet saw the war. The war is the great
chief topic of conversation. The interest in it is vivid and constant;
the interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention of the war will wake
up a dull company and set their tongues going, when nearly any other
topic would fail.
