Quote:
Originally Posted by antgirl1
Yeah I was hoping I'd avoid this obstacle...At first I was going to refer Charlotte as "Ma" but it just didn't feel right...I guess it comes with being a Northerner....=P
But still...If it's really THAT bad of an issue, I'll go into every chapter she had been in thus far and change it.
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Sorry to be so particular, but when you've lived here in the South all your life, and you've spent some time in the Holy City, you just get a certain attachment. It's like when Hollywood usually tries to make a Southern movie, and everyone winds up talking like "Foghorn Leghorn", that horrific fake accent that makes any real Southerner's skin crawl! At least now, some Hollywood actors who aren't from the South, like Jason Lee, for instance, can finally get it right when it comes to a convincing Southern accent.
Still, though, the Low Country dialect heard in and around the Charleston area is very different from a real Southern accent, due to the huge numbers of cultures that went into that particular ethnic gumbo. The "Geechee" dialect is more properly classified as a "Creole" dialect, actually, with a lot of influence from West African, Caribbean and French languages and cultures.
One thing to keep in mind as you write is the deeply-rooted cultural concept of family. In Southern culture, but especially in the African-American Southern culture, the only thing stronger and more important than family was one's religious faith. Sorta like the Hawaiian concept of "O'hana", once you're accepted as a family member, whether or not you're related in any way, you're family for life. I really don't think Jordan would ever have had any reason to fear that his mama would have objected to his new Imaginary Friend. After her initial shock at seeing this tall red being wore off, she would have simply accepted him as if he were just another one of her kids-a really, really TALL kid, and Wilt most likely would have been expected to call her "Mama", too. She in turn most likely would have referred to him in the presence of company as her "baby", 10-feet tall or not, simply because he was the youngest. That's just how things are, or at least, how they were 32 years ago. A lot has changed, and not for the better, since then, with gangs and drugs and the break-down of that sense of family taking hold since that time. Still, when I got lost in the worst part of the Charleston ghetto(and that's what it is, an old inner-city ghetto)last March, the only reliable directions I got were from a couple of Crips, who were showing off their "colors", leaving no doubt that's what they were, and this is probably the only city where even the GANGSTAS can be helpful and polite!
pitbulllady