One of the longest standing country music stations here in the Raleigh area is now vigorously advertising a new… um, I suppose one might call it a service? They have installed a “Holla Line” for people to send “shout outs” to their friends, family, etc. They did not go so far as to suggest that people might send said shout outs to their “peeps,” but I suspect this can be seen as a definite sign of why, exactly, current commercial country music consists of pretty much completely unmitigated crap.
This does remind me of the article about nerdy vs. cool language I wrote about over on Geek Buffet a while ago, though. Mary Bucholtz, the linguist being profiled for her work on nerd language, noted that ‘the “hegemonic” “cool white” kids use a limited amount of African-American vernacular English; they may say “blood” in lieu of “friend,” or drop the “g” in “playing.” But the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English.’ I guess the country station doesn’t want to take the chance of being associated with the nerds anymore. This is made funnier, though, by the fact that there is a country song out right now (it’s probably a few years old now, but still regularly played) that laments this very trend.
From Tim McGraw’s “Back When”:
I’m readin’ Street Slang For Dummies
Cause they put pop in my country
I want more for my money
The way it was back thenBack when a hoe was a hoe
Coke was a coke
And crack’s what you were doing
When you were cracking jokes
Back when a screw was a screw
The wind was all that blew
And when you said I’m down with that
Well it meant you had the flu
I miss back when…
(Note that this doesn’t actually mean that I like that song, just that I appreciate the irony. Tim McGraw isn’t exactly immune from putting pop in country.)
I have never heard that song. Its quite funny. My best girlfriend was just saying today that should would love to start a group, on a message board, of people that HATE bad grammar.
I am known for dropping my G’s when I am really tired or had a drink. Its the country Texas girl in me. I don’t know that there is a particularly “African-American vernacular” in this part of the country. We all talk tend toward speaking slang.
Rebecca,
As it turns out, “g-dropping” is probably the more normal way of speaking for almost every native English speaker. People identify it with African American Vernacular English, with Southern English, with low-class wherever English, but really, most people do it most of the time. *Except* when they are doing something like reading out loud, or being really careful, because we’ve been taught that it’s more proper, because that’s how things are spelled. And that’s what nerds/geeks are really doing, speaking with “reading pronunciation.” So we’re the weird ones, really. (”We” meaning geeks like me.)
I was wondering if it was ok with you if I link your blog on mine?
Rebecca,
Sure, no problem!