I have come to the conclusion that childhood phonics curricula and Southern accents do not mesh well. Over the course of the past year, Lydia and I have run into multiple anomalies with sounding out words versus the word as we know it.
Already we have run across the pin/pen merger, feel vs. fill, and the good ol’ fashioned Drawl.
Earlier today we were working with words that end in ‘ch.’ I wrote out a word for Lydia on the board:
branch
Lydia sounds it out. “Buh. Buh-rrr. Buh-rrr-ah-nch. Buhrrahnch.” The sound of this still makes no sense to her, so she throws in a little ‘y.’ “Buhrrayy-nch. Buhraynch.” She finally gets it. “Branch!”
Earlier this week she was writing some thank-you notes for Christmas, signing the letters “Lydia and Sam.”
“Mommy,” Lydia asks, “Why do I hear a ‘y’ when I say ‘Sam’ but there’s no ‘y’ in it? Listen: Sayy-um.”
Well, in reality,” I explain, “It’s supposed to be ‘Sahm. Sahm. Just one syllable. We’re just Southern so it comes out with a ‘y’ in it, because we talk lazy. Sayy-um.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it; you won’t be able to shake it.”
What do you mean, “we talk lazy?” We use TWO syllables when one will do. That takes work! bra(y)nch! We are very industrious! So to save enery for such endeavours we occasionally drop a ‘g’ at the end of a word, and that’s all people seem to remember. If you ask me, we earned it!! I’m going to ask the guv’nah for a pardon.