Talking Southern – Contractions

Your commentator nearly put the horse before cart last column by phonetically spelling out some common contractions without first having explained them. This week’s musings will seek to do just that.

We all know what a contraction is; it is a combining, usually of more than one word into a single word, but sometimes a collapsing of a single word. Some common ones are:

– “I’m” for “I am,”

– “It’s” for “It is,”

– “Can’t” for “Cannot” – this if often pronounced, “Cain’t,” in the South,

– “I’ll” for “I will,” and

– “She’d” for “She would,”

just to name a handful used more or less universally across this great nation of ours.

But Southerners have some other ones, probably entirely too many to list. But hopefully the following guide will be of at least some aid to discernment and understanding in the non-Southern ear. And your commentator is open to any suggestions on spelling or punctuating any of these more clearly.

“I’m’o” for “I am going to…”

The helping verb, “can,” sounds like “gn” when contracted, as in:

He’gn make a bigger mess than anybody I ever saw.
She’gn make better rutabagas than any cook I know.
You’gn probably figure out a few more of these, such as, “They’gn.”

The ones that rhyme with, “wooden,” to wit:

Mama wouldn’ hit you with that wooden spoon if you wouldn’ traipse around here like you have a wooden head and the shallowest brain pan in history.
He was so drunk he couldn’ hit the ground with his hat.
People shouldn’ make fun of how other folks talk (unless, of course, the other folks aren’t around, which is sort of reminiscent of the message reportedly embroidered on a cushion in the parlor of the late Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980) of Washington, D.C. It supposedly said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me.”)

We all know what “didn’t” means. It is the common contraction for “did not.” But in much of the South, we pronounce it without the terminal T, as “didn’.” But we didn’ stop there. We took “isn’t,” which is pronounced more or less as it is written in most of the nation and changed it in everyday speech to be “idn’,” which rhymes precisely with “didn.”

To make thing even more fun, we messed a bit with the present tense contraction of “doesn’t,” which sounds just as it is spelled in much of the country. But when relaxing in the language, we are liable to pronounce it, “dudn’,” as in, “He dudn’ t have enough sense to know when to come in out of the rain.”

Speaking of folks with little sense puts your compiler in mind of a strange kid in his first or second grade class who liked to pretend he was a car. About the only utterance one could draw from him was a muffled, “Udn, udn, udn,” which of course rhymes with “dudn’,” but which was a challenge for the teacher when it came time for oral activities such as reading aloud or spelling.

And that brings your compiler to the final contraction he wishes to discuss – “Cudn.” Southerners are generally a very “cousiny” people, and many of us use “Cudn” as a way of addressing much older cousins directly – as a courtesy title much like using aunt, uncle, Mr., or Mrs. to precede a person’s name in direct address or in referral. Using “Cudn” other than as an address or direct referral would be terribly substandard. “John is my cudn” is a sentence that just does not pass muster; he is not your cudn, but your cousin, which we would not contract in this case. But to say, “Cudn John, I surely am glad to see you!” is a perfect usage as direct address, just as, “Cudn John was not my favorite cousin by a long shot” is an example of referral.

Be sure to tune in next week to explore how “cousiny” a people we Southerners are, and to read a good story about the late Cudn Vernon Woods of Brooks, who had more chickens than Col. Sanders.