When I was much younger, I made fun of northern accents. I couldn't stand them. Ok, I should probably interject and admit that I still make fun of them--the really obnoxious ones, but the longer I live here, the less I notice them.
I grew up in Texas at the start of the great migration to the Sunbelt states. Many northerners were moving south and a nativist attitude prevailed with "Native Texan" bumper stickers. This is when I began to joke that northern/Yankee accents made me go into convulsions. Fast forward twenty years and I now live in the north amongst the accents. I guess the joke is on me.
After finding out that I now live in NJ, many of my college and high school friends bring up the fact that I joked that I couldn’t stand a northern accent. Well, people change and it was just a joke. I can take it---about 98% of the time. I have been detuned. When you grow up in Texas or attend college in Arkansas, someone with a northern accent would stick out a little more. The tables are turned now that I am surrounded by northern accents, it’s now my Texas drawl that stands out.
I have found that I enjoy listening to and discovering the regional accents. I like to go into New York City and its burroughs and listen for the Queens and Brooklyn dialects. I laugh at the thought of a Joizey accent and I cringe a little when Chloe reminds me that she’s growing up Joizey when she pronounces the word cars as “caws” (and no, it’s not a speech impediment).
For the most part, I don’t notice the accents. I do notice idioms, grammar and colloquialisms. And there is one when used drives me nuts. I am puzzled by the use of “get on line” or “are you on line?”. I just don’t get its use. I don’t understand it because it makes no sense to me and I think if I don’t just blog about it, put it out there and be done with it, it could drive me nuts thinking about it. Weird? Maybe I am. But, I’ve just got to get to the bottom of this one.
It seems I enter a store, go to the checkout and someone uses it-- “Are you on line?” or I take Chloe to the park and another mom says to her child, “If you want to slide then get on line.” I am puzzled. I look for the line. Where is it? At check outs in stores, at the fast food restaurant, at the park, are there imaginary lines we are supposed to stand on as we wait our turn?
I know, I know, it’s really minor but it grates on my nerves when I hear it used. Maybe I need to lighten up--we are only talking about the use of prepositions but it seriously drives me bonkers and serves as a reminder that maybe I don’t notice the accents but I do notice the regional idioms---and that one is wrong!
I had to Goo*gle the usage and low and behold, there are others who have noticed the usage of “on line” vs. “in line”. I am not alone and it makes me feel a little better in my obsessive dislike that one of the others is a linguistics professor at Har*vard University. In an article about the linguistics professor's study of regional dialects, the Har*vard Gazette writes:
New York City is another place where unique speech patterns frequently occur. Some, like stoop (the steps leading up to the front door) are holdovers from when New York was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Others like "I stood on line" rather than the far more common "I stood in line" are of mysterious origin.
I also found a more humorous discussion here (read “A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal”).
At least I know I am not alone (and in the majority on the usage of “in line”). Maybe 30 years from now, when the Texas twang has faded, the only give-away that I am not a native will be my usage of “in line”---seriously, no one else around here uses it---they're all "on line". The only time I am on-line is when I am using the internet.
1 comment
Sorry, but though Chloe's Uncle John has not live on the East Coast in decades, the Brooklyn boy still uses "on line". - Aunt D
Post a Comment