Talking Southern – Syrup

 Vacationing a few weeks ago on beautiful Anna Maria Island in southwest Florida with his extended family, your compiler enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast every day cooked by a different family member.   His five-year-old grandson, Rhett, enjoys French toast and syrup more than about any other breakfast food, so that was the fare a couple of the beachside mornings.

     Other mornings might have featured such foods as English muffins and/or Canadian bacon, which caused young Rhett to get his nationalities mixed-up one morning and asked for “English toast,” which tickled everyone’s funny bone.   Your compiler, while enjoying the delicious fare and family time, was reminded on one of those “English toast” mornings of an historic difference in regional pronunciation, and how non-Southern ways of saying things are invading our culture and flattening our region’s language distinctiveness.

     Syrup is what reminded your compiler of this sticky situation (lame pun offered with apologies.)  Syrup, of course, is that wonderful elixir most often in the South made from ribbon cane, but occasionally made from sorghum when a more viscous and pungent condiment is required.  (Maple syrup, imported from the North, is considered to be something of a delicacy in some quarters, but most Southerners your compiler knows prefer syrup made from canes nurtured by Southern sunshine to any bled from a Northern tree.)

     The real sticky wicket is that folks in different parts of the county pronounce “syrup” in differing ways, and those foreign pronunciations of the word have made inroads with our good, raised-right, Southern youth.   Every native Southerner your compiler has ever noticed who is over perhaps forty pronounces the term, “SUR-up,” the first syllable of which rhymes with the polite phrase, “Yes, sir!”    In fact, your compiler does not recall hearing any other pronunciation of the term till he was past forty.

     But getting back to that first “English toast” morning at the beach, your compiler and his upstate South Carolina-born wife  — who we can safely assert are both over forty – were both talking about  passing the “SUR-up,” while the younger adults in the group – all in their thirties and all raised in Brooks, Georgia, were pronouncing it “SEAR-up.”  Your compiler nearly dropped his plate, which was laden with “English toast,” eggs, and sausage, into the floor, which would have been a tragedy indeed.  

     He did not say anything – he dislikes to be critical – but was saddened to think that this historic pronunciation, “SUR-up,” might only last about as long as his generation does.   That’s a good while yet, hopefully, though, and there may still be time to right the ship. But as the Southern philosopher once said, “Tempus sho do fugit,” which means we had better get to work if we’re going to stop the invasion of pronunciations such as “SEAR-up” from taking over.