I heard a Nebraska state legislator say, “I’m extremely from Nebraska.” The adverb was novel. I’m from Texas, but not “extremely.” If I’d been raised in Terre Haute I’d be a Hoosier (but not extremely). What arrests me more than birth-accident proclamation is how locale inflects idiolect.
Katherine “Kitty” Carmichael, Dean of Women at Chapel Hill (North Carolina), hosted sherry to a group of graduate students at her home once. She said of her southern accent, “Wherever I go, people don’t listen to what I say, but to how I say it.” Her remark held bemused resignation. This patrician academic was not of a mind to shrink from her roots.
Author Barbara Kingsolver, a Kentucky native, spoke similarly in a podcast interview by Ezra Klein. When she entered Depauw University (Indiana), fellow students pestered Kingsolver to say “syrup” and “mayonnaise,” smiling at her Appalachian twang. “People heard my words, not what I said.” She began shedding what she called her “Kentuckian affect.”
I worked on losing my Lone Star affect from an early age. My aim was to light out for parts unknown and cloak myself in alien tongues; didn’t want to be pigeonholed by a drawl if I could help it. Now that I’ve washed up in Texas again, the mixed vowels and languid enunciation have seeped back in. My cloak is frayed.
(c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
Maybe his Christian name really was “Extremely”, lol; or perhaps he was momentarily tongue-tied… or some sort of Freudian slip?
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Good points all! 🙂
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Your site doesn’t let me give your words a ‘like’ , so here’s a smiley instead, 🙂
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I haven’t excluded “like”s on my site. A WordPress glitch maybe?
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Probably… but I still can’t get the “likes” option to function ! I could press it a tousand times and nothing ! And also I am asked to fill in my email, name, and website, details when I post a comment to you… (and to others on WP) which takes time and tries my patience. Maybe it’s a new thing that WP have introduced?
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This rings a bell, Peter. I’ve had the same experience. Apparently you’re not logged into WP when responding to the blog and it treats you as a passing visitor. Have you tried responding via the WP Reader when you’re logged in?
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The algorithmic machinations of WP are a mystery to me, Jim ! I don’t like to delve too deeply into terrain I know nothing about. I just googled the problem and followed advice from some nerd or other; tweaking something to do with privacy and whatever after which things seemed to improve.
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