I have consulted with grammar experts here and in New York City and the general conclusion is that the title to this essay is something like an adverb. I was largely unschooled on the matter of grammar in the English language. So if there is a mistake in the labeling of this title as an adverb, a verb or a proverb, I seek your acquiescence. Perhaps you will understand a bit better if I explain the circumstances under which I grew up.
In our homes in Clayton and Richmond Heights, Missouri my parents and my siblings were always bi-lingual. The siblings all spoke standard English whereas to my parents standard English was a second tongue. My mother could speak standard English reasonably well. On the other hand, my father spoke no standard English but instead used country-speak. For all of his life of 77 years, my father spoke only country-speak. With my mother and my siblings speaking both languages, he apparently had few difficulties getting along in life.
My father built the new house in Richmond Heights, Missouri. It was a solidly built house with a few gimcracks in its structure. In addition, about 30 feet behind the house, my father had constructed a two-car garage. In a way, the garage testified to my father’s belief in strong materials properly assembled. In the back of the garage there was a bench that stretched from one side to the other. As might be imagined, it was a heavy-duty bench. I believe that below the bench on the right side my father had constructed some drawers that could be pulled out. Even when I was a grown man, there was no problem with sitting on my father’s bench at the back of the garage. I of course did not sit there but this will give you an idea of the strength of the structures my father built.
In that same garage, on the rafters above, my father stored his saws. There were rip saws and cross-cut saws as well as a two-man saw that we had used to cut up trees that we had felled. So I believe that I have established the fact that my father constructed strong structures that were capable of lasting. But when it came to speaking standard English, the old man was sort of thrown out at second base.
You may remember that in previous essays I have told you that my father had quit school at the age of sixteen or seventeen years, when he had progressed only to the “second reader.” He like my mother attended country schools where at the beginning of the year they would give you a book or perhaps it was a notebook that was your curriculum for the whole year. They didn’t say that one had completed the second grade or the third grade but rather they said that one had completed the second reader.
Between taking breaks for the planting and the harvesting of the crops as well as doing a little mining, my father had progressed only to the second reader when he finally gave up. Surely there was evidence of his lack of education all through his life. But he was a strong man who carried on despite his lack of education.
On many occasions my older sister Verna attempted to explain the ways of city people. She would explain, for example, that the western-most state in the United States was pronounced as “Cal-i-forn-ya.” My father simply dug in his heels and pronounced the state as “Cal-i-forn-nee.” His name, the same as mine, was Ezra. He and his friends as well as his wife pronounced that name as “Ezree.” He was not a big man, probably weighing no more than a hundred and fifty or sixty pounds. That was his maximum weight.
By the time that I came along, being the last child in the family, it was clear that he was going to play from the country-speak text book for the rest of his life and I accepted that.
In effect, my father and I were always strangers. Yet there was love on both sides. For example, in 1947 when I was an officer of the Telephone Workers Union, we were on strike against AT&T. The strike went on for more than six weeks. At the same time, my father had fallen out of a tree due to his blindness and fractured his skull. When I went to visit him in St. Mary’s Hospital, he said, “Son, you’ve been without a paycheck for a long while. I’ve got some money and I want you to have it.” I did not take the money, explaining that I had saved up in anticipation of the strike. But I told him that if I needed some money, I was be glad to know that it was available from him.
On another occasion, my father had his shotgun out to shoot at crows that were bothering my mother’s chickens. On that occasion, when I was four or five years old, I must have mentioned to my father that he could shoot a bird. Ezra Senior replied, “That bird loves his life as much as you love your own.” I suppose that I shut up and didn’t ask my father to shoot any more birds.
But that is enough about my father’s outlook on life. Let us now turn to the guts, if you will pardon the expression, of this essay. The guts of this essay have to do with my father’s use of country-speak. He spent a good bit of time in the garage behind the house. He knew where everything was located; he knew the last time that he had oiled the tools.
So let us assume that my father could not locate a very small rattail file which had somehow been misplaced. This did not happen very often because my father insisted that everything had a place and that it was up to the person that removed objects to replace them in the proper place.
If a tool was misplaced, while he was looking for the tool, my father would say, soto vocce (softly), “That (rattail) file must be here summers.” I suppose that if a grammarian tried to decipher my father’s use of language, it would mean, “That file must be somewhere in here.” But that is not what my father said. He said, “That file must be in here summers.” I am reliably informed by my wife Miss Chicka that if my father had uttered those words in western Pennsylvania, they would be recognized instantly. I also suspect that my older friends, such as Howard Davis and Tom Scandlyn, would also recognize the word “summers or sommers” instantly.
The wonderful thing about country-speak is that it has no grammar to it and spelling is quite optional. If a man wishes to say “summers” or “sommers,” either spelling would be eminently acceptable and the rest of us would know exactly what he had in mind.
Well, then, this is your lesson in country-speak for today. It might be said that this is my sermon on country-speak as we start the month of April. I suspect that this has made you wiser and improved your outlook on life. Always remember that “That file must be in here sommers.” Either spelling will produce the same result. And I must say that I am glad to have been raised in a home that was bi-lingual.
E. E. CARR
April 2, 2012
Essay 645
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Kevin’s commentary:
I am immediately curious as to why a blind man was climbing a tree in the first place. Pop, if and when you see this, let me know if you do much tree-climbing these days. I know you like your maple tree very much — do you think you could climb it?
For another essay about Country Speak, read Licking, also published recently.
For my part, I am jealous of Pop’s “multilingual” upbringing. Despite my father being from Dallas and my mother being from New Jersey, I was not raised hearing the garbled versions of English that is routinely produced by denizens of either of these locations. If not proficient in country-speak, I feel that I should at least be able to manage a decent Texan accent… but no, I was raised in Austin, where I would be sure to get no exposure to such a thing. It’s all quite sad, really.